Introduction & Objective: Diabetes care for older adults is complex. Older adults are at increased risk for geriatric syndromes, including cognitive impairment, hearing loss, visual impairment, depression, polypharmacy, incontinence, disability, and injurious falls. To address this complexity, we created a virtual reality (VR) training for health professional students. The purpose of this single arm, pre-post-test study was to assess students’ changes in empathy, attitudes toward disability, and self-efficacy in identifying and managing elder abuse and neglect before and after participating in the VR training.
Methods: Health professional students at a large university in the Midwest were invited to participate in the VR training centered on an 80-year-old man, with a history of type 2 diabetes, a mobility disability, hearing loss, urinary incontinence, and potential dementia. Participants completed pre-post questionnaires via Qualtrics.
Results: A total of 67 health professional students participated (mean age=22.7±3.9 years, 80.6% women, 67.2% White, 20.9% Black, 9.0% Asian, 29.9% pre-medical). Surprisingly, we observed a decrease in empathy post-VR training (t=3.204, p=.002). This may reflect a potential empathy bias, such that the participants overestimated their empathy prior to the VR training but became more aware of their lack of experience in understanding different perspectives and emotions of adults with complex health issues. Next, we observed an improvement in participants’ attitudes toward disability (t= -2.799, p=.007) and an improvement in their self-efficacy to identify and manage elder abuse and neglect (t= -2.209, p=.032).
Conclusion: Findings suggest that this VR training may improve health professional students’ attitudes toward disability and self-efficacy towards identifying and managing elder abuse and neglect; more research is needed to determine its impact on empathy.
E.A. Beverly: None. C. Love: None. M. Love: None.
Ohio Department of Medicaid (ODM202238)
