Educational needs of severe trauma treatment simulation based on mixed reality: Applying focus group interviews to military hospital nurses

Purpose: The purpose of this study is to identify the educational needs of a severe trauma treatment simulation program based on mixed reality which combines element of both virtual reality and augmented reality.Methods: Focus group interviews were conducted with ten military hospital nurses on February 4 and 5, 2021. The collected data were analyzed using a qualitative content analysis. As a framework for data analysis, the educational needs were clustered into the following four categories: teaching contents, teaching methods, teaching evaluation, and teaching environment.Results: The educational needs for each category that emerged were as follows: three subcategories including “realistic education reflecting actual clinical practice” and “motivating education” for teaching contents; five subcategories including “team-based education,” “repeated education that acts as embodied learning,” and “stepwise education” for teaching methods; six subcategories including “debriefing through video conferences,” “team evaluation and evaluator in charge of the team,” “combination of knowledge and practice evaluation” for teaching evaluation; six subcategories including “securing safety,” “similar settings to real clinical environments,” “securing of convenience and accessibility for learners,” and “operating as continuing education” for teaching environment.Conclusion: The findings of this study can provide a guide for the development and operation of a severe trauma treatment simulation program based on mixed reality. Moreover, it suggests that research to identify the educational needs of various learners should be conducted.