Interprofessional Training in Virtual Reality for Health Care: Experimental Study on Procedural Knowledge and...

Area of Science:

• Medical Education
• Virtual Reality in Healthcare
• Interprofessional Collaboration

Background:

• High-quality wound care necessitates interprofessional collaboration among medical, nursing, and pharmacy professionals.
• Interprofessional education (IPE) for wound care is limited in higher education.
• Immersive virtual reality (iVR) offers a standardized, realistic, and safe environment for collaborative IPE.

Purpose of the Study:

• To evaluate an interprofessional iVR wound-care training program's impact on students' procedural knowledge and willingness to collaborate.
• To investigate the relationship between cognitive load and these learning outcomes.

Main Methods:

• A within-subjects design with pre- and posttests was used.
• 116 medical, nursing, and pharmacy students participated in two iVR sessions focusing on pressure ulcer care.
• Procedural knowledge, willingness to collaborate, and cognitive load were assessed.

Main Results:

• Procedural knowledge significantly increased post-training (P<.001).
• Cognitive load did not significantly affect procedural knowledge gains.
• Willingness to collaborate showed a significant increase after the second session (P=.007), but not after the first (P=.063).

Conclusions:

• iVR training effectively enhanced procedural knowledge by managing cognitive demands through structured instructional design.
• Attitudinal changes like collaboration willingness may require sustained engagement rather than single exposure.
• The iVR training demonstrated equal effectiveness across medical, nursing, and pharmacy students, highlighting its potential for scalable IPE.