Feasibility of Nurse-led Development of Custom Virtual Reality Experiences for Health Care Interventions

Abstract

Background: The immersive and interactive nature of virtual reality (VR) renders it a potential pedagogical approach for nursing education. A bottleneck for exploiting VR advantages has been the complexity of creating new experiences; however, recent advances with VR hardware and software enable novice users to create compelling experiences. Method: A case study describes an undergraduate nursing student with minimal technical skills using off-the-shelf VR software to create a pain management VR experience. Results: Using off-the-shelf hardware and software platforms eliminates the need to work with computer code. The team created a virtual environment and the objects in it through easy manipulation with click-and-drag techniques and by toggling simple settings. Conclusion: The insights gained from this case suggest nurse educators can create simple yet powerful VR experiences themselves, which can greatly enhance existing tools for nursing education. [ J Nurs Educ . 2023;62(X):XXX–XXX.]