{"title":"Enhancing Cancer Truth-Telling Perspectives Using Virtual Reality in Communication Skills Training: An Experimental Study Among Medical Students.","authors":"Shih-Ying Chen, Ji-Tseng Fang, Ming-Ju Hsieh, Che-Wei Lin, Heng-Hsin Tung, Maiko Fujimori, Woung-Ru Tang","doi":"10.5334/pme.1684","DOIUrl":null,"url":null,"abstract":"<p><strong>Introduction: </strong>Virtual Reality (VR) has advanced in medical education, offering enhanced realism and immersion, allowing students to safely practice complex and rare scenarios like cancer truth-telling. This study aimed to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a VR-based cancer truth-telling module.</p><p><strong>Methods: </strong>This experimental study randomly assigned fifth-year medical students to the following groups: in-person communication skills training (iCST), VR, and a combined iCST+VR group. The intervention included a 30-minute video-based mini-lecture followed by practical application. The VR group received the VR truth-telling module, the iCST group received the small-class iCST module, and the iCST +VR group received both the iCST and VR modules. Primary outcomes assessed were cancer truth-telling perspectives, with communication confidence and learning satisfaction as a secondary outcome. Data were collected at baseline, immediately after, and at three and six months post-intervention.</p><p><strong>Results: </strong>Seventy-nine medical students were enrolled and randomly assigned to the iCST (n = 28), VR (n = 29) and iCST +VR (n = 22) groups. The study findings showed that the iCST+VR group significantly improved in cancer truth-telling perspectives at six months post-intervention. No significant difference was found between iCST and VR groups for cancer truth-telling perspectives. Although communication confidence scores significantly improved across all groups, no differences were found between groups. The iCST group reported higher learning satisfaction compared to other groups, with no significant difference between VR and iCST+VR.</p><p><strong>Discussion: </strong>This study demonstrated that VR is as effective as iCST in enhancing cancer truth-telling perspectives and communication confidence, highlighting VR's potential as an innovative tool in medical education.</p>","PeriodicalId":48532,"journal":{"name":"Perspectives on Medical Education","volume":"14 1","pages":"539-548"},"PeriodicalIF":3.9000,"publicationDate":"2025-09-10","publicationTypes":"Journal Article","fieldsOfStudy":null,"isOpenAccess":false,"openAccessPdf":"https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC12428323/pdf/","citationCount":"0","resultStr":null,"platform":"Semanticscholar","paperid":null,"PeriodicalName":"Perspectives on Medical Education","FirstCategoryId":"3","ListUrlMain":"https://doi.org/10.5334/pme.1684","RegionNum":2,"RegionCategory":"医学","ArticlePicture":[],"TitleCN":null,"AbstractTextCN":null,"PMCID":null,"EPubDate":"2025/1/1 0:00:00","PubModel":"eCollection","JCR":"Q1","JCRName":"EDUCATION, SCIENTIFIC DISCIPLINES","Score":null,"Total":0}
引用次数: 0
Abstract
Introduction: Virtual Reality (VR) has advanced in medical education, offering enhanced realism and immersion, allowing students to safely practice complex and rare scenarios like cancer truth-telling. This study aimed to develop and evaluate the effectiveness of a VR-based cancer truth-telling module.
Methods: This experimental study randomly assigned fifth-year medical students to the following groups: in-person communication skills training (iCST), VR, and a combined iCST+VR group. The intervention included a 30-minute video-based mini-lecture followed by practical application. The VR group received the VR truth-telling module, the iCST group received the small-class iCST module, and the iCST +VR group received both the iCST and VR modules. Primary outcomes assessed were cancer truth-telling perspectives, with communication confidence and learning satisfaction as a secondary outcome. Data were collected at baseline, immediately after, and at three and six months post-intervention.
Results: Seventy-nine medical students were enrolled and randomly assigned to the iCST (n = 28), VR (n = 29) and iCST +VR (n = 22) groups. The study findings showed that the iCST+VR group significantly improved in cancer truth-telling perspectives at six months post-intervention. No significant difference was found between iCST and VR groups for cancer truth-telling perspectives. Although communication confidence scores significantly improved across all groups, no differences were found between groups. The iCST group reported higher learning satisfaction compared to other groups, with no significant difference between VR and iCST+VR.
Discussion: This study demonstrated that VR is as effective as iCST in enhancing cancer truth-telling perspectives and communication confidence, highlighting VR's potential as an innovative tool in medical education.
期刊介绍:
Perspectives on Medical Education mission is support and enrich collaborative scholarship between education researchers and clinical educators, and to advance new knowledge regarding clinical education practices.
Official journal of the The Netherlands Association of Medical Education (NVMO).
Perspectives on Medical Education is a non-profit Open Access journal with no charges for authors to submit or publish an article, and the full text of all articles is freely available immediately upon publication, thanks to the sponsorship of The Netherlands Association for Medical Education.
Perspectives on Medical Education is highly visible thanks to its unrestricted online access policy.
Perspectives on Medical Education positions itself at the dynamic intersection of educational research and clinical education. While other journals in the health professional education domain orient predominantly to education researchers or to clinical educators, Perspectives positions itself at the collaborative interface between these perspectives. This unique positioning reflects the journal’s mission to support and enrich collaborative scholarship between education researchers and clinical educators, and to advance new knowledge regarding clinical education practices. Reflecting this mission, the journal both welcomes original research papers arising from scholarly collaborations among clinicians, teachers and researchers and papers providing resources to develop the community’s ability to conduct such collaborative research. The journal’s audience includes researchers and practitioners: researchers who wish to explore challenging questions of health professions education and clinical teachers who wish to both advance their practice and envision for themselves a collaborative role in scholarly educational innovation. This audience of researchers, clinicians and educators is both international and interdisciplinary.
The journal has a long history. In 1982, the journal was founded by the Dutch Association for Medical Education, as a Dutch language journal (Netherlands Journal of Medical Education). As a Dutch journal it fuelled educational research and innovation in the Netherlands. It is one of the factors for the Dutch success in medical education. In 2012, it widened its scope, transforming into an international English language journal. The journal swiftly became international in all aspects: the readers, authors, reviewers and editorial board members.
The editorial board members represent the different parental disciplines in the field of medical education, e.g. clinicians, social scientists, biomedical scientists, statisticians and linguists. Several of them are leading scholars. Three of the editors are in the top ten of most cited authors in the medical education field. Two editors were awarded the Karolinska Institute Prize for Research. Presently, Erik Driessen leads the journal as Editor in Chief.
Perspectives on Medical Education is highly visible thanks to its unrestricted online access policy. It is sponsored by theThe Netherlands Association of Medical Education and offers free manuscript submission.
Perspectives on Medical Education positions itself at the dynamic intersection of educational research and clinical education. While other journals in the health professional education domain orient predominantly to education researchers or to clinical educators, Perspectives positions itself at the collaborative interface between these perspectives. This unique positioning reflects the journal’s mission to support and enrich collaborative scholarship between education researchers and clinical educators, and to advance new knowledge regarding clinical education practices. Reflecting this mission, the journal both welcomes original research papers arising from scholarly collaborations among clinicians, teachers and researchers and papers providing resources to develop the community’s ability to conduct such collaborative research. The journal’s audience includes researchers and practitioners: researchers who wish to explore challenging questions of health professions education and clinical teachers who wish to both advance their practice and envision for themselves a collaborative role in scholarly educational innovation. This audience of researchers, clinicians and educators is both international and interdisciplinary.
The journal has a long history. In 1982, the journal was founded by the Dutch Association for Medical Education, as a Dutch language journal (Netherlands Journal of Medical Education). As a Dutch journal it fuelled educational research and innovation in the Netherlands. It is one of the factors for the Dutch success in medical education. In 2012, it widened its scope, transforming into an international English language journal. The journal swiftly became international in all aspects: the readers, authors, reviewers and editorial board members.
The editorial board members represent the different parental disciplines in the field of medical education, e.g. clinicians, social scientists, biomedical scientists, statisticians and linguists. Several of them are leading scholars. Three of the editors are in the top ten of most cited authors in the medical education field. Two editors were awarded the Karolinska Institute Prize for Research. Presently, Erik Driessen leads the journal as Editor in Chief.
Perspectives on Medical Education is highly visible thanks to its unrestricted online access policy. It is sponsored by theThe Netherlands Association of Medical Education and offers free manuscript submission.