Simulating a situation of homelessness: nursing students' perceptions of learning through virtual embodiment

Individuals experiencing homelessness encounter unique challenges in accessing and receiving care in our health systems[1,2,3,4] Preparing emerging health professionals to respond to their complex health needs will require innovative educational approaches that promote person-centered care, and stimulate critical reflection and action towards the personal, interpersonal and structural factors that shape health care delivery.[5,6,7] This presentation reports on preliminary findings of phase 1 of a critical qualitative case study of nursing student’s perceptions of learning about the experience of homelessness, through a virtual reality educational experience. The study design was informed by critical transformative learning theories and theories of embodiment. Twenty nursing students were engaged in a virtual reality experience of 12 minutes, followed by a 1:1 debrief interview. The debrief interview used an adapted version of the Promoting Excellence and Reflective Learning in Simulation (PEARLS) framework to elicit students’ reflections on the experience. The interviews were audio recorded and transcribed verbatim. Data analysis involved a process of reading all of the transcripts for a sense of the whole, mindmapping each of the transcripts, identifying themes that permeated the data set, and coding data in Quirkos software. Six preliminary themes include: a) seeing the person through story, b) destabilizing assumptions and questioning stereotypes, c) embodied emotional awareness, d) challenges to care, e) recognizing vulnerability of people experiencing homelessness, and f) quality of the immersive experience in learning. The findings contribute to our knowledge about virtual reality simulation as an innovative approach to fostering learning about homelessness in health professions education.