Abstract
BackgroundThe ability of nursing undergraduates to communicate effectively with health care providers, patients, and their family members is crucial to their nursing professions as these can affect patient outcomes. However, the traditional use of didactic lectures for communication skills training is ineffective, and the use of standardized patients is not time- or cost-effective. Given the abilities of virtual patients (VPs) to simulate interactive and authentic clinical scenarios in secured environments with unlimited training attempts, a virtual counseling application is an ideal platform for nursing students to hone their communication skills before their clinical postings.ObjectiveThe aim of this study was to develop and test the use of VPs to better prepare nursing undergraduates for communicating with real-life patients, their family members, and other health care professionals during their clinical postings.MethodsThe stages of the creation of VPs included preparation, design, and development, followed by a testing phase before the official implementation. An initial voice chatbot was trained using a natural language processing engine, Google Cloud’s Dialogflow, and was later visualized into a three-dimensional (3D) avatar form using Unity 3D.ResultsThe VPs included four case scenarios that were congruent with the nursing undergraduates’ semesters’ learning objectives: (1) assessing the pain experienced by a pregnant woman, (2) taking the history of a depressed patient, (3) escalating a bleeding episode of a postoperative patient to a physician, and (4) showing empathy to a stressed-out fellow final-year nursing student. Challenges arose in terms of content development, technological limitations, and expectations management, which can be resolved by contingency planning, open communication, constant program updates, refinement, and training.ConclusionsThe creation of VPs to assist in nursing students’ communication skills training may provide authentic learning environments that enhance students’ perceived self-efficacy and confidence in effective communication skills. However, given the infancy stage of this project, further refinement and constant enhancements are needed to train the VPs to simulate real-life conversations before the official implementation.
Highlights
A total of 4 virtual patients (VPs) case scenarios were developed for each semester on the following topics: (1) interviewing a pregnant woman with pain to solicit holistic history taking; (2) history taking from a depressed patient; (3) using a standardized approach such as situation, background, assessment, and recommendation (SBAR) to hand-off interdisciplinary communications; and (4) showing empathy to a fellow nursing student
To test and validate the content, the virtual counseling application using artificial intelligence (VCAAI) will be implemented on approximately 150 year 2 and year 3 nursing undergraduates
A user acceptance test (UAT) will be performed to evaluate the program’s effectiveness on nursing students’ performances, attitudes, and perceived self-efficacy pertaining to communication skills
Summary
BackgroundEffective communication skills are an integral part of the nursing profession and the foundation for high-quality nursing care [1]. Nursing students are often stressed over their lack of adequate skills to communicate effectively with patients and their family members [7,8]. Standardized patients are community members who are carefully recruited and trained to take on the characteristics of a real patient, and they provide students with opportunities of learning and assessments in simulated clinical environments [13]. The ability of nursing undergraduates to communicate effectively with health care providers, patients, and their family members is crucial to their nursing professions as these can affect patient outcomes. Objective: The aim of this study was to develop and test the use of VPs to better prepare nursing undergraduates for communicating with real-life patients, their family members, and other health care professionals during their clinical postings. Given the infancy stage of this project, further refinement and constant enhancements are needed to train the VPs to simulate real-life conversations before the official implementation
Sign-in/Register to view highlights & summary Talk to us
Join us for a 30 min session where you can share your feedback and ask us any queries you have
Schedule a callDisclaimer: All third-party content on this website/platform is and will remain the property of their respective owners and is provided on "as is" basis without any warranties, express or implied. Use of third-party content does not indicate any affiliation, sponsorship with or endorsement by them. Any references to third-party content is to identify the corresponding services and shall be considered fair use under The CopyrightLaw.
