Virtual patients for patient education during the COVID-19 pandemic

OBJECTIVE The design, implementation and evaluation of the utilization of electronic virtual patient (VP) applications in patient education during the Coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic. METHOD The DeepRaft platform was used for the design and creation of three virtual patient educational scenarios. The evaluation that was performed included (a) the system usability evaluation and (b) the evaluation of the patients' educational experience. An online questionnaire was utilized that included the System Usability Scale (SUS) Score and the electronic Virtual Patients Toolkit (eViP Toolkit). RESULTS Three virtual patients were created with educational scenarios regarding lymphedema, chemotherapy and mental health. The system evaluation was performed by nine patients and a high usability score, equal to 97.2 as obtained, which corresponded to excellent usability of the system (Grade A). Moreover, the majority of participants evaluated the application positively in all of the evaluation axes of the educational experience, with a percentage of 77.8% of participants stating that after the completion of the educational scenario they could better deal with the same issue in reality, while a percentage of 88.8% replied that virtual patients are a valuable educational experience. CONCLUSIONS The present study demonstrates the high usability and efficacy of virtual patients for patient education, especially under the circumstances of social isolation due to pandemic.