Hiley Katherine, Bi-Mohammad Zanib, Taylor Luke, Burgess-Dawson Rebecca, Patterson Dominic, Puttick-Whiteman Devon, Gay Christopher, Hiscoe Janette, Munsch Chris, Richardson Sally, Knowles-Lee Mark, Beecham Celia, Ralph Neil, Chatterjee Arunangsu, Mathew Ryan, Mushtaq Faisal
Centre for Immersive Technologies, HELIX, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
School of Psychology, Faculty of Medicine & Health, University of Leeds, Leeds, United Kingdom.
JMIR Med Educ. 2025 Apr 2;11:e64619. doi: 10.2196/64619.
The use of extended reality (XR) technologies in health care can potentially address some of the significant resource and time constraints related to delivering training for health care professionals. While substantial progress in realizing this potential has been made across several domains, including surgery, anatomy, and rehabilitation, the implementation of XR in mental health training, where nuanced humanistic interactions are central, has lagged.
Given the growing societal and health care service need for trained mental health and care workers, coupled with the heterogeneity of exposure during training and the shortage of placement opportunities, we explored the feasibility and utility of a novel XR tool for mental health consultation training. Specifically, we set out to evaluate a training simulation created through collaboration among software developers, clinicians, and learning technologists, in which users interact with a virtual patient, "Stacey," through a virtual reality or augmented reality head-mounted display. The tool was designed to provide trainee health care professionals with an immersive experience of a consultation with a patient presenting with perinatal mental health symptoms. Users verbally interacted with the patient, and a human instructor selected responses from a repository of prerecorded voice-acted clips.
In a pilot experiment, we confirmed the face validity and usability of this platform for perinatal and primary care training with subject-matter experts. In our follow-up experiment, we delivered personalized 1-hour training sessions to 123 participants, comprising mental health nursing trainees, general practitioner doctors in training, and students in psychology and medicine. This phase involved a comprehensive evaluation focusing on usability, validity, and both cognitive and affective learning outcomes.
We found significant enhancements in learning metrics across all participant groups. Notably, there was a marked increase in understanding (P<.001) and motivation (P<.001), coupled with decreased anxiety related to mental health consultations (P<.001). There were also significant improvements to considerations toward careers in perinatal mental health (P<.001).
Our findings show, for the first time, that XR can be used to provide an effective, standardized, and reproducible tool for trainees to develop their mental health consultation skills. We suggest that XR could provide a solution to overcoming the current resource challenges associated with equipping current and future health care professionals, which are likely to be exacerbated by workforce expansion plans.
在医疗保健领域使用扩展现实（XR）技术可能有助于解决与为医疗保健专业人员提供培训相关的一些重大资源和时间限制问题。虽然在实现这一潜力方面已经在包括外科手术、解剖学和康复等多个领域取得了重大进展，但在心理健康培训中实施XR却滞后了，而在心理健康培训中，细微的人文互动是核心。
鉴于社会和医疗保健服务对训练有素的心理健康和护理人员的需求不断增加，再加上培训期间接触的异质性以及实习机会的短缺，我们探讨了一种新型XR工具用于心理健康咨询培训的可行性和实用性。具体而言，我们着手评估一个通过软件开发人员、临床医生和学习技术专家合作创建的培训模拟，其中用户通过虚拟现实或增强现实头戴式显示器与虚拟患者“斯泰西”进行互动。该工具旨在为实习医疗保健专业人员提供与出现围产期心理健康症状的患者进行咨询的沉浸式体验。用户与患者进行口头互动，一名人类指导教师从预先录制的配音剪辑库中选择回复。
在一项试点实验中，我们向主题专家确认了该平台用于围产期和初级保健培训的表面效度和可用性。在后续实验中，我们为123名参与者提供了个性化的1小时培训课程，这些参与者包括心理健康护理实习生、正在接受培训的全科医生以及心理学和医学专业的学生。这一阶段涉及全面评估，重点关注可用性、效度以及认知和情感学习成果。
我们发现所有参与者组的学习指标都有显著提高。值得注意的是，理解（P<.001）和动机（P<.001）显著增加，同时与心理健康咨询相关的焦虑减少（P<.001）。对围产期心理健康职业的考虑也有显著改善（P<.001）。
我们的研究结果首次表明，XR可用于为学员提供一种有效、标准化且可重复的工具，以培养他们的心理健康咨询技能。我们建议，XR可以提供一个解决方案，以克服当前与为现有和未来医疗保健专业人员提供培训相关的资源挑战，而劳动力扩张计划可能会加剧这些挑战。
