Schreiter Melina, Hennrich Jasmin, Wolf Anna Lina, Eymann Torsten
FIM Research Center for Information Management, Bayreuth, Germany.
Branch Business & Information Systems Engineering, Fraunhofer FIT, Bayreuth, Germany.
J Med Internet Res. 2025 Apr 30;27:e62649. doi: 10.2196/62649.
Virtual reality (VR) technologies in health care, particularly in medical rehabilitation, have demonstrated effectiveness by enabling patient remobilization in virtual environments, offering real-time feedback, enhancing physical function and quality of life, and allowing patients to exercise autonomously. Nevertheless, VR technologies are facing slow adoption in routine rehabilitative practice due to health care professionals' concerns regarding data security, lack of time, or perceived cost.
This study aimed to explore how previous experience with VR technologies influences health care professionals' decisions to adopt or reject these technologies in medical rehabilitation.
We conducted 23 semistructured interviews with health care professionals from different rehabilitative fields in Germany, whom we grouped into VR-experienced "innovators" and nonexperienced "laggards" according to their level of innovativeness. When analyzing the interviews, we applied qualitative content analysis techniques and derived 56 preliminary categories from the transcripts.
We merged the preliminary categories into 26 adoption and rejection factors, which were grouped under the 4 overarching categories of the diffusion of innovation theory by Rogers. In addition to the pure identification of context-specific influencing factors, we were able to identify differences between these factors concerning the two different adopter groups. VR-experienced innovators exhibited key characteristics such as openness to new technologies, solution-oriented thinking, and opinion leadership, whereas nonexperienced laggards focused on barriers and relied on top-down knowledge transfer. Despite these differences, both groups agreed on the factors that promote the adoption of VR technologies. Our results indicate that addressing the unique needs of both groups is crucial for wider VR acceptance in health care.
This study demonstrates the importance of distinguishing between VR-experienced and nonexperienced health care professionals, providing actionable insights for developing adopter-specific communication strategies to overcome barriers and foster broader diffusion of VR technologies in the health care sector.
虚拟现实（VR）技术在医疗保健领域，尤其是在医学康复中，已通过在虚拟环境中促进患者活动、提供实时反馈、增强身体功能和生活质量以及让患者自主锻炼展现出有效性。然而，由于医护人员对数据安全、时间不足或成本的担忧，VR技术在常规康复实践中的采用速度缓慢。
本研究旨在探讨以往对VR技术的体验如何影响医护人员在医学康复中采用或拒绝这些技术的决策。
我们对德国不同康复领域的医护人员进行了23次半结构化访谈，根据他们的创新水平将其分为有VR体验的“创新者”和无体验的“落后者”。在分析访谈时，我们应用了定性内容分析技术，并从访谈记录中得出了56个初步类别。
我们将初步类别合并为26个采用和拒绝因素，这些因素被归入罗杰斯创新扩散理论的4个总体类别之下。除了纯粹识别特定背景下的影响因素外，我们还能够识别出这两组不同采用者群体在这些因素上的差异。有VR体验的创新者表现出对新技术开放、以解决方案为导向的思维和意见领袖等关键特征，而无体验的落后者则关注障碍并依赖自上而下的知识转移。尽管存在这些差异，但两组在促进VR技术采用的因素上达成了一致。我们的结果表明，满足两组的独特需求对于在医疗保健中更广泛地接受VR至关重要。
本研究证明了区分有VR体验和无体验的医护人员的重要性，为制定针对采用者的沟通策略提供了可行的见解，以克服障碍并促进VR技术在医疗保健领域更广泛的传播。
