Impact of Virtual Dementia Tour on empathy level of nursing students: A quasi-experimental study

Objective: As a developable ability, empathy is significantly associated with patient-centered care. The authors intended to evaluate the effect of Virtual Dementia Tour (VDT) upon nursing students' empathy level and propose practical rationales for optimizing future dementia care. Methods: A t...

Full description

Saved in:
Bibliographic Details
Main Authors: Xiya Peng (Author), Liaofang Wu (Author), Xiaoshu Xie (Author), Mengjun Dai (Author), Donghua Wang (Author)
Format: Book
Published: Elsevier, 2020-07-01T00:00:00Z.
Subjects:
Online Access:Connect to this object online.
Tags: Add Tag
No Tags, Be the first to tag this record!
Description
Summary:Objective: As a developable ability, empathy is significantly associated with patient-centered care. The authors intended to evaluate the effect of Virtual Dementia Tour (VDT) upon nursing students' empathy level and propose practical rationales for optimizing future dementia care. Methods: A total of 45 second-year undergraduate nursing students were organized to watch a theme movie entitled Still Alice and participate in an 8-min VDT. Jefferson Scale of Empathy-Health Professional Students (JSE-HPS) was employed for evaluating the empathy level of nursing students. After VDT, all nursing students participated in a structured interview. Descriptive statistics and paired t-tests were performed using SPSS 24.0. Results: Their empathy levels demonstrated significant overall improvements (106.69 ± 9.49 vs 115.51 ± 10.16, P < 0.01). During the course of VDT, nursing students experienced varying levels of anxiety and frustration. All of them were satisfied with the program since they had gained a deeper understanding of demented patients and the program could change their attitudes toward demented elders. Conclusion: Watching a specially selected movie and participating in VDT may be an effective method for enhancing empathy and caring during nursing student education.
Item Description:2352-0132
10.1016/j.ijnss.2020.06.010