Preliminary research of empathy education in medical students through virtual scenario experience

INTERVENTION: The virtual reality (VR) in the interventional group depicts a character as a depressed medical student and comprises three scenes. In the school setting, she wakes up from a nap, struggles to concentrate and take notes in her pharmacology course, and learns about her unsatisfactory test score during a post‐class discussion. Feeling uneasy about the conversation, she avoids it, leading to inquiries from concerned classmates. This discomfort prompts her to ruminate on negative memories. The hospital scene portrays her helplessness as a doctor hurriedly asks questions. At home, she isolates herself, loses interest in playing the guitar, resorts to her cellphone for solace, and encounters distressing social news. Amid parental criticism, she hesitates to join friends for a reunion, ultimately contemplating a tragic decision and swallowing all her drugs. The VR utilizes an HTC VIVE Cosmos, developed with Unity 2019 software and connected to the VIVE device via Steam VR 2.6.1. The video's duration is 16:20 minutes, administered in a single session at the Chang Gung Memorial Hospital seminar room, supervised by investigators. A comparison with the control treatment reveals distinct elements in the intervention group, such as blurred faces, dim lighting, repeated internal monologue, and unattainable tasks designed to simulate characteristics of depression like inattention, a monotonous and boring life feeling, ruminating thoughts, and fatigue. CONDITION: Public Health ‐ Health promotion/education Stress;empathy; ; Stress ; empathy PRIMARY OUTCOME: attitude toward depression[Implicit Association Test (IAT) pre test: the same day after VR experience, 1 hour before video was shown; post test: the same day after VR experience, 1 hour after video was shown] empathy[Chinese version of the Jefferson Scale of Empathy for Health Professional Students (JSE‐HPS) pre test: online questionnaire one week before the day of the experiment.; post test: the same day after VR experience, 1 hour after video was shown] SECONDARY OUTCOME: emotional response towards VR experience[Self‐Assessment Manikin (SAM) the same day after VR experience, 1 hour after video was shown] physical discomfort during the VR experience[virtual reality sickness questionnaire (VRSQ) the same day after VR experience, 1 hour after video was shown] sense of embodiment in VR experience[Body ownership and agency (BOA), inclusion of others in the self (IOS), both measures will be assessed as a composite secondary outcome, the outcome will be presented together as the sense of embodiment. the same day after VR experience, 1 hour after video was shown] the sense of immersion in VR[The presence questionnaire 3.0 the same day after VR experience, 1 hour after video was shown] INCLUSION CRITERIA: fifth‐year and sixth‐year medical students of any gender from Chang Gung University