Effects of a Patient Experience-Based Virtual Reality Blended Learning Program on Nursing Students

When provided with opportunities to view the world from the patients' perspective, nursing students can experience the same practical occurrences and feelings that patients encounter, consequently becoming more aware of their discomfort and pain. This study aimed to evaluate the performance of the patient experience virtual reality blended learning program developed for nursing students. This study is significant in that it presents a program that enables nursing students to not only experience being perioperative patients themselves but also experience their conditions in places other than hospitals, which are generally used as training locations. The analytical results of this study indicated that nursing students who virtually experienced the conditions of perioperative patients through virtual reality blended learning showed increased levels of empathy, positive attitudes toward patient safety treatment, confidence in nursing care, and clinical skill performance. The developed program in this study blended various teaching methods with a virtual reality platform to help junior nursing students with practical and effective perioperative training increase their levels of empathy by simulating the experiences and perspectives of perioperative patients.