Enhancing Empathy, Knowledge and Positive Attitude Among Nursing Undergraduates via a Virtual Reality-Based (VR) Mental Health Education Programme

Abstract

Background and Objectives: Mental health education in nursing programme aims to develop students’ empathetic understanding of lived experience in patients with mental illness. Currently, role play scenarios with simulated psychiatric symptoms were commonly used to enhance students’ learning experience. However, this method failed to show the comprehensive picture of mental illness. This study investigated the use of VR mental health simulation in enhancing student empathetic understanding towards mental illness. Methods: This study used an uncontrolled design, pre- post- measures to evaluate initial benefits of VR simulation in mental health nursing education. Year 4 nursing undergraduate students received VR mental health simulation which presented ‘typical’ symptoms associated with the common mental illness which allow learners to experience the illness as the first person. Student also experienced the stigma and misunderstanding from the society around them by the VR characters. The outcomes measures were empathy by Empathy Scale in Patient Care (ES-PC), with pair-t test analysis. Student’s satisfaction towards VR simulation with 5-point Likert scale and narrative feedbacks were also collected. Results: 204 students participated in the VR simulation. Pair-t test showed statistically significant in improving student’s empathy towards mental illness (t=3.45, p=.001). Students showed satisfactory towards VR simulation in questionnaires with mean score 3.85 (SD=0.687, range 3.72 – 3.91). Positive comments were received presenting VR simulation as a good and interesting experience to improve understanding towards mental illness. However, negative comments were also received to reflect the technical problems, physical discomfort, and similar experience with pure 2-D video. Conclusions: These results suggest that VR mental health simulation may have a beneficial effect on improving student empathetic understanding towards mental illness. Further data is warranted to evaluate the effectiveness of VR simulation.