Applications and challenges of virtual reality and augmented reality technology in the field of nursing education

Introduction: Nurses as an applied member in health care have always faced challenges such as lack of suitable environment, lack of time, the need to continue to do something, etc. in the field of education, the use of virtual reality and augmented reality techniques can a large extent Reduce the high risks of traditional nursing education as well as reduce medical errors and increase patient safety. Therefore, researchers have studied the applications and challenges of virtual reality and augmented reality in nursing education.Methods: The search for this review study was conducted in July 2020 and using the keywords virtual reality, argument reality, education, nursing, challenge application in PubMed, Google Scholar, Scopus. In this study, only English articles were examined without a time limit. It was selected based on the titles and abstracts of related studies articles, and their data were extracted by two researchers and entered in a researcher-made table.Results: After reviewing 23 articles, 11 studies were included due to high overlap. Of these, 5 examined the impact of virtual reality, 3 augmented reality, and the other 3 examined both technologies in nursing education. Studies in prestigious journals such as BMC nursing, Contemporary Nurse, Journal of Nursing and Health Studies, INTECH, and Teaching with technology were published. All articles considered using these technologies useful in education but mentioned virtual reality in more practical education, as mentioned in 72.7% of studies. Quantitative studies (27.3%) examined blisters.Conclusion: According to the findings of this study, it was found that virtual and augmented reality technologies can act as a potential strategy for nursing education as it can; Simulate the patient's real-life experiences in a risk-free environment, enable repetitive practice sessions, expose the person to a variety of patient conditions, provide immediate feedback, and so on, with challenges such as non-acceptance. Faced with traditional medical caregivers, the cost of hardware, and so on.

Keywords:

Virtual Reality , Augmented Reality , Nursing Education , Virtual Education Methods