Virtual home visits training regarding personal safety for postgraduate trainees in general practice – learning gain and feelings of anxiety with video and 360° VR applications

Background: Performing home visits needs to be trained with regards to the general practitioners’ safety in unknown environment. Since real home visits cannot be standardized, we aimed for the implementation of virtual home visits into postgraduate training. Methods: We conducted a controlled pilot study with postgraduate trainees in general practice taking part in 90-minute seminars on personal safety aspects during home visits. They performed a virtual home visit in form of a video or 360° virtual reality (VR). A pre-post evaluation was used to measure the learning gain via self-assessment and state anxiety. This pilot study was not registered and therefore, has no trial number. Results: Virtual home visits resulted in an increase in confidence to carry out home visits independently (z-value = 28.229, p < 0.001 in the video group (n = 92) and means 3.1 (t0), 3.4 (t1) and 4.1 (t2) in the VR group (n = 11)) and changes in being scared of performing home visits on their own in the VR group (means 2.1 (t0), 2.3 (t1) and 3.0 (t2)). Conclusions: Virtual home visits are able to prepare trainees for performing home visits in seminar group size. The use of VR gave no indication of an increased learning gain over video, but appeared more challenging in the implementation, e.g. time-consuming introduction into hard- and software.