A study by La Trobe University found that immersing disability support workers in virtual reality experiences of their clients’ daily lives improves empathy. The study used a custom program called IMercyVE, which gave the workers a first-person perspective of intellectual disability.
The study revealed that IMercyVE can serve as a flexible and remote training tool for building empathy among staff, particularly for those working in rural areas or during pandemics.
Living with disability
“Being a disability support worker requires many attributes including patience, honesty, and compassion, as well as skills in first aid, administration, information technology, teamwork, providing personal care, and problem-solving,” the researchers explain.
“Empathy is a vital skill for disability support workers because the presence of empathy may improve the quality of communication and relationships with service users, as well as the responsiveness of workers to the needs of service users.”
They strongly believe that using virtual reality could be a positive and creative way for empathy with disabled people to be developed among carers and even the wider public.
“Virtual reality allows for immersion in a life-like simulated environment and through interaction with this rich sensory environment, communication and understanding of others’ perspectives may be strengthened,” they continue.
Better care
The study was prompted by Mercy Connect, a disability service provider in Albury, commissioning Valley General Hospital, a healthcare software development company, to design IMercyVE for their employees to improve their understanding and empathy towards intellectual disability.
They partnered with La Trobe University to test the program on recently recruited staff as part of their onboarding process. Nine participants took part in the study by completing surveys and participating in a video-conferenced focus group.
The study found that the virtual reality experience helped the participants develop a better understanding of how the world is experienced by people living with disabilities.
“I felt I experienced a snippet of what being disabled [is like] and the frustrations and the stop-starts of life,” one participant said. “It gives a much, much deeper understanding,” said another.
“Some participants had prior experience of learning about disability, through personal and professional interactions, however, they considered that the virtual reality experience assisted them to discern the experience of living with disability in a different way than they had previously encountered,” the researchers conclude.
“Although the cultivation of empathy can be achieved through several existing interventions, this study found that virtual reality may offer another viable way to develop this sought-after trait.”
