Using virtual patients to enhance empathy in medical students: a scoping review protocol

Empathy is a crucial skill that enhances the quality of patient care, reduces burnout among healthcare professionals, and fosters professionalism in medical students. Clinical practice and standardized patient-based education provide opportunities to enhance empathy, but a lack of consistency and reproducibility as well as significant dependency on resources are impediments. The COVID-19 pandemic has further restricted these opportunities, highlighting the need for alternative approaches. Virtual patients through standardized scenarios ensure consistency and reproducibility while offering safe, flexible, and repetitive learning opportunities unconstrained by time or location. Empathy education using virtual patients could serve as a temporary alternative during the COVID-19 pandemic and address the limitations of traditional face-to-face learning methods. This review aims to comprehensively map existing literature on the use of virtual patients in empathy education and identify research gaps.

This scoping review will follow the Joanna Briggs Institute's guidelines and be reported according to PRISMA-P. The search strategy includes a comprehensive search across databases such as PubMed (MEDLINE), CINAHL, Web of Science, Scopus, ERIC, Google, Google Scholar, and Semantic Scholar, covering both published and gray literature without language restrictions. Both quantitative and qualitative studies will be included. Two independent researchers will screen all titles/abstracts and full texts for eligibility. Data will be extracted to summarize definitions of empathy, characteristics of virtual patient scenarios, and methods for measuring their impact on empathy development. Results will be presented in narrative and tabular formats to highlight key findings and research gaps.

As this review analyzes existing literature, ethical approval is not required. Findings will be actively disseminated through academic conferences and peer-reviewed publications, providing educators and researchers with valuable insights into the potential of virtual patients to enhance empathy in medical education. This study goes beyond the mere synthesis of academic knowledge by contributing to the advancement of medical education and clinical practice by clarifying virtual patient scenario design and evaluation methods in empathy education. The findings provide a critical foundation for our ongoing development of a medical education platform aimed at enhancing empathy through the use of virtual patients.