JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Simulation based Advanced Cardiac Life Support (ACLS) or Advanced Life Support (ALS) trainings of healthcare professionals are important for saving lives all over the world. Virtual Reality (VR) based serious gaming can be an alternative modality to be used as a part of simulation based ALS trainings.

Objective:

The aim of this study is to reveal whether Virtual Reality (VR) based ALS serious game module can replace classroom-based ALS lecture, which is part of existing conventional ALS training protocol in addition to skills training.

Methods:

The participants consisting of students from Acibadem Mehmet Ali Aydinlar University Vocational School for Anesthesiology (N=29) were randomly divided into two groups with 15 (Conventional training group) and 14 (VR based training group) participants each. The members of the conventional group had to complete pretest at the beginning of the study. Afterwards they had to take part at an interactive classroom based lecture about ALS. The next step was the skills training with task trainers in order to teach them compression skills. Afterwards, the conventional group was divided into three blue code teams consisting of each 5 participants for the simulation session. Two independent instructors evaluated the video recordings in terms of technical and nontechnical skills. The final stage of the study were completing the post-test. The members of VR group had a similar study flow but they had to play with the VR based ALS serious game module instead of the theoretical lecture. A survey about preference of VR based trainings was conducted for the members of the VR group. Mann Whitney U Test and Wilcoxon Signed Ranks Test were used for statistical analysis of the two groups’ performances in this study.

Results:

The technical scores of the conventional group were higher than the virtual reality group, but total scores acquired from the manikin based simulation session did not reveal any statistical difference between the two groups. The results of the VR preference survey revealed that the majority of the VR group members prefer VR based serious game based training instead of classroom lectures.

Conclusions:

These data reveal that VR based serious gaming performances are almost similar with the conventional group meaning that playing with VR based serious game or attending at the lecture based session do not differ statistically from each other in terms of total scores acquired after the evaluation of the trainees’ simulation performances by two independent educators. VR preference survey also reveals that the majority participants would prefer VR based ALS serious gaming module instead of lecture-based educations in the classroom. Further studies are required in order to reveal the superiority and potential to replace lecture-based educations of VR based ALS serious gaming are required. Clinical Trial: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT05798910; https://www.clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05798910