Testing the efficacy of a virtual reality‐based simulation in enhancing users’ knowledge, attitudes, and empathy relating to psychosis

Abstract

Objective: The current study examined the efficacy of a virtual reality (VR) education system that simulates the experience of the positive symptomology associated with schizophrenic spectrum and other psychotic disorders. Method: The sample comprised of 50 participants from the general public and various psychology undergraduate programs. Participants completed pre-test measures exploring knowledge of diagnosis, attitudes, and empathetic understanding, before being exposed to an immersive VR simulation of a psychotic episode. Participants then completed the original measures with the addition of a user-experience scale, which explored sub-factors understood to share a relationship with VR effectiveness (i.e., fidelity, immersion, presence, and user buy-in). Results: Participants' scores were significantly enhanced at post-test across each outcome measure, with significant correlations found between a number of the gain and user-experience scores. Conclusions: The findings suggest that VRbased simulations of psychopathology may offer a promising platform for delivering a constructionist approach to psychology education.

The Effectiveness of Virtual Reality-Based Simulation in Health Professions Education Relating to Mental Illness: A Literature Review

“…Subjective reports from participants indicated that VR simulation could be an effective training tool for mental health professionals in empathy gain due to its capability of simulating high levels of emotional experience of the "stigmatized other" with immersive environment. This is consistent with the study conducted by Formosa and colleagues [39], which recruited fifty participants with a psychology undergraduate degree (n = 3) and individuals from the general public (n = 47) and utilized a custom-made VR simulation which provided users the immersive story-driven replication of positive schizophrenic and other psychotic disorder symptoms such as auditory and visual hallucinations, and paranoid delusional thoughts. Findings from the participants' pre and post-test scores exhibited significant enhancement of empathetic understanding towards patients with schizophrenia and other psychotics (p < 0.001).…”

“…Of the three studies [36] [37] [39] that examined users' empathy, two of them [36] [39] have confirmed the association between VR simulation and heightened empathy while the remaining [37] found no significant differences. Meanwhile, only the study from Dyer et al examined the impacts of VR simulation on health profession students.…”

“…Sample sizes of participants ranged from 80 to 800 while the subject groups of the articles are two for nursing students [34] [ 35], one for medical and other health professions students [36], one for informal caregivers [37], one for teachers [38], and one for general public and psychology undergraduate [39]. Among the 6 selected articles to answer the research question, most of the articles [34] [35] [36] [38] [39] (n = 5) confirmed the association between users' exposure to VR simulation and users' improvement in knowledge, attitudes, or empathy.…”

Is Virtual Reality Uniquely Effective in Eliciting Empathy?

“…Several recent studies indicate VR has the potential to alter behaviors (Formosa et al 2017;Horace et al 2016;Marco, Perpina, & Botella, 2013). In this study, we expect that:…”

“…For example, Formosa et al (2017) found that exposure to VR simulations of schizophrenic symptoms increased empathy scores from pretest to posttest. The authors recommend that such simulations be used to teach tolerance and acceptance for those with psychiatric disorders.…”