Cinematic Virtual Reality for Educating Health Care Providers About Type 2 Diabetes, Disability, and Elder Abuse and Neglect: A Pilot Study

Background: Diabetes care for older adults is complex and must consider geriatric syndromes, disability, and elder abuse and neglect. Health care providers would benefit from professional training programs that emphasize these risks. One new educational approach is cinematic virtual reality (cine-VR). We conducted a pilot study to evaluate a cine-VR training program based on an older patient with type 2 diabetes and multiple geriatric syndromes who is at risk for elder abuse and neglect. Methods: We employed a single-arm, pre-post-test study to assess changes in attitudes to disability and self-efficacy in identifying and managing elder abuse and neglect. Results: Thirty health care providers completed the pilot study (83.3% women, 86.7% white, 56.7% physicians, 43.4% practiced in outpatient clinics). We observed change in attitudes toward discrimination (Z = -2.628, P = .009, Cohen's d = .62). In addition, we observed changes in six of the eight self-efficacy items, including how participants would ask questions about abuse (Z = -3.221, P = .001, Cohen's d = .59) and helping an older patient make a report to the police or social services (Z = -2.087, P = .037, Cohen's d = .52). In addition, we observed positive changes in understanding the documentation needed to complete whether a patient reports abuse (Z = -3.598, P < .001) as well as the legal knowledge for how to report elder abuse and neglect (Z = -2.556, P = .011). Conclusion: Findings from this pilot study suggest that cine-VR training may increase health care providers' awareness of discrimination and improve self-efficacy toward identifying and managing elder abuse and neglect. Research with a proper control condition is needed to confirm its effectiveness.