Effectiveness of Virtual Reality in Reproductive Health and Family Planning Education: A Randomized Controlled Trial: A Different Method In Reproductive Health And Family Planning Education: Virtual Reality.

Abstract

Objective: This study aimed to compare the effectiveness of reproductive health and family planning (FP) education given to women using face-to-face (F2F) training and virtual reality (VR) methods.

Design and methods: This study is a three-group, pretest-posttest, randomized, controlled experimental study. The study was conducted between September 2022 and July 2024. As a result of the power analysis to determine the sample size, the study was completed with two experimental groups, one control group, and 40 patients in each group, totaling 120 patients. "Sociodemographic Information Form," "Scale for Determining Reproductive Health Protective Attitudes of Women," and "Family Planning Attitude Scale" were used to collect the data. The data were analyzed using SPSS 27.0 software. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square, One-Way ANOVA, and repeated measures analysis of variance were used to evaluate the research data.

Results: Compared with F2F training and control groups, the VR + F2F group showed significantly greater improvements across reproductive health protective attitudes and FP attitudes at both follow-up and post-test. While F2Feducation also improved scores compared to the control group, the VR-augmented intervention resulted in the most substantial gains. The findings indicate that VR reinforcement significantly enhances the effectiveness of traditional education in improving women's attitudes toward reproductive health and FP.

Conclusion: As a result, it was determined that the training given to women using VR applications increased reproductive health and FP knowledge and attitudes compared to F2F training and the control group.

Trial registration: NCT05678829.