Using Virtual Reality to Improve Nurses' Students' Clinical Surveillance in a Critical Care Context: A Psychological Perspective on Learning

Nurse's clinical judgement is important to provide optimal and safe care, particularly in a critical care unit. Clinical surveillance is an activity that nurses use every day and which requires crucial components to manage patients' risk of complications. To carry out this process, several cognitive functions and psychological attitudes are needed such as information and attention processing, judgement, decision-making, stress, and anxiety regulation. Since 2018, Milhomme, Banville et al. have been working to develop a Virtual Care Unit (VCU), using immersive virtual reality, intended to train future nurses to improve their competence towards clinical surveillance process skills. The aim of this qualitative descriptive study was to determine the pertinence to use VCU simulation with graduating nurses' students to improve clinical surveillance skills in a critical care context. Thirteen nursing students were recruited to test the scenario through the VCU. Participants were instructed to carry surveillance process on a specific patient who suffer of an instability after a surgery. An interview guide of 11 questions was used for the data collection. The results show there are 10 facilitating and 9 restricting factors in the VCU that may play a role in nursing students' learning clinical surveillance processes. Among these elements, four of them have an important link with a psychological perspective: 1) sense of presence; 2) cybersickness; 3) reflexive environment; 4) stress reduction. Results show an important contribution of several cognitive function in the clinical surveillance process learning by the virtual reality technology.