Designing Virtual Patients for Education of Nursing Students in Cancer Course

One of the best approaches to promote clinical reasoning in nursing education is Virtual Patient (VP). The purpose of this study was to design and implement VPs for nursing student’s education in caring for cancer patients.

In the first stage, through a descriptive‑exploratory qualitative study using a focus group method, topics with higher priority in cancer nursing were identified. Then, based on the VP Nursing Design Model (VPNDM) for each of these topics, a scenario and then an interactive VP was designed and implemented in the Open Labyrinth application. The content validity of VPs was evaluated by eight experts and then the face validity was examined in the pilot group including 15 nursing students.

Topics with higher priority in cancer nursing courses were mastectomy, chemotherapy, radiotherapy, hypercalcemia, spinal cord compression, cardiac tamponade, and superior vena cava syndrome. For five scenarios based on the nursing process in three sequences (signs and symptoms, diagnosis and interventions) the VPs were designed. In this process, learning objectives, determining the critical path, adding branches at the decision point, adding feedback, completing the clinical course and related data, and adding multimedia were considered. VPs were revised based on the proposed modifications following face and content validity.

This article presents VP design steps for use in a nursing student training course. The researchers were able to provide and validate five VPs to care for cancer patients based on the VPNDM.