Virtual Reality and Nursing Students and Dementia

SUBJECT: The Effect of Virtual Reality Based Interactive Therapeutic Dementia Patient Education Program on the Levels of Knowledge, Attitudes and Empathy towards Dementia OBJECTİVE: The research was planned to determine the effect of virtual reality-based interactive therapeutic dementia patient education program on the knowledge, attitude and empathy levels of nursing undergraduate students. DESIGN: Pretest and posttest randomized controlled trial BACKGROUD:It is inevitable to strengthen and enrich nursing education with innovative teaching approaches in understanding the needs of individuals with dementia and informal caregivers and providing qualified nursing care for dementia, which is more difficult and intangible to understand compared to chronic diseases.From this point of view, it is expected that the virtual reality-based interactive therapeutic dementia patient education program to be implemented in this study will have positive ethics in the knowledge, attitude and empathy levels of nursing undergraduate students. METHODS: The research will be carried out between 16.10.2023 and 16.10.2024 with 50 second year nursing students from the faculty of nursing. Students will be divided into control and intervention groups of 25 people in the form of block randomization.Students in the intervention group will implement a virtual reality-based interactive therapeutic dementia patient education program.Students in the control group will not be given any program other than the routine education program.Both groups will be asked to fill simultaneously the dementia knowledge assessment scale, the dementia attitude scale, and the Jefferson empathy scale for nursing students before and after administration.Statistical analysis of the data will be made.