Development and evaluation of virtual reality simulation education based on coronavirus disease 2019 scenario for nursing students: A pilot study

Aim This research is designed to establish and evaluate the effectiveness of a virtual reality simulation program using COVID-19 scenario for nursing students. Design This is a quasi-experimental study using a non-equivalent control group pre-test-posttest design. Methods The participants were 65 students in their fourth year in nursing college. The knowledge about communicable infectious diseases in the respiratory system, self-efficacy, clinical reasoning capacity and learning satisfaction was evaluated. Results The experimental group showed a significantly higher learning satisfaction (t = 3.01, p = .004). Both groups presented statistically significant differences in knowledge on infectious respiratory diseases, self-efficacy and clinical reasoning between pre-test and posttest. However, knowledge (t = 0.47, p = .643), self-efficacy (t = 0.70, p = .944) and clinical reasoning were not different between the groups.