Immersive VR-Based Patient Journey

Background: Patients usually receive information about the upcoming surgery and their subsequent stay in the hospital by the surgeon and or the surgical staff on ward. However, often patients are still afraid of the surgery and cannot fully grasp all the received information. Here, we implement and evaluate an immersive virtual reality (VR) based patient journey as an educational tool before cardiac surgery, which informs the patients about their hospital stay to increase patient information level and to reduce potential stress and anxiety.

Method: We developed an interactive VR application which guides cardiac surgical patients stepwise through their hospital stay. The virtual environment consists of photogrammetric scans of the actual rooms of the local hospital (normal ward, operation ward, anesthetic room, intensive care unit, intermediate care unit) with a virtual narrator accompanying the patients during interactive exploration. The application was tested with 14 elderly patients undergoing cardiac surgery using a structured interview and the ATTRAKDIFF questionnaire.

Results: The ATTRAKDIFF questionnaire showed good hedonistic and pragmatic qualities of the developed application. Patients rated our application mostly positive. The implemented concept of an individual interactive retrieval of information on demand allows patients to use the application according to their needs. However, some elderly patients did not want to wear a head-mounted VR-display and did not participate in the study which is a major challenge for this application. Patients who experienced our application reported a pleasant feeling of relief and felt that experiencing the VR application before the surgery would have been helpful whereas the implemented interaction concept was not as much appreciated.

Conclusion: The results show that patients can benefit from a virtual reality-supported preparation talk. While some elderly patients are skeptical of modern technology, those who tested our application were mostly pleased and reported a positive effect on their mood and feeling of security. Virtual reality is an adequate tool to support the informative talk with the surgeon before an operation. To conclude, the application largely fulfills its requirements, but the areas of interaction and presentation should be improved in a further iteration so that the application can be used in everyday clinical practice.

No conflict of interest has been declared by the author(s).

Publication History

Article published online:
28 January 2023