Currently submitted to: JMIR Human Factors
Date Submitted: Dec 3, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: May 12, 2026 - Jul 7, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
NOTE: This is an unreviewed Preprint
Warning: This is a unreviewed preprint (What is a preprint?). Readers are warned that the document has not been peer-reviewed by expert/patient reviewers or an academic editor, may contain misleading claims, and is likely to undergo changes before final publication, if accepted, or may have been rejected/withdrawn (a note "no longer under consideration" will appear above).
Peer review me: Readers with interest and expertise are encouraged to sign up as peer-reviewer, if the paper is within an open peer-review period (in this case, a "Peer Review Me" button to sign up as reviewer is displayed above). All preprints currently open for review are listed here. Outside of the formal open peer-review period we encourage you to tweet about the preprint.
Citation: Please cite this preprint only for review purposes or for grant applications and CVs (if you are the author).
Final version: If our system detects a final peer-reviewed "version of record" (VoR) published in any journal, a link to that VoR will appear below. Readers are then encourage to cite the VoR instead of this preprint.
Settings: If you are the author, you can login and change the preprint display settings, but the preprint URL/DOI is supposed to be stable and citable, so it should not be removed once posted.
Submit: To post your own preprint, simply submit to any JMIR journal, and choose the appropriate settings to expose your submitted version as preprint.
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Using Virtual Reality to Support Community-Based Medical Education: A Mixed Methods Study
ABSTRACT
Introduction: Community-based medical education (CBME) is valued as a vital component of preparing medical students for practice but is often problematic to deliver due to placement capacity. Virtual Reality (VR) has the possibility to provide students with learning experiences that help them to understand community structures and health and social care needs in these settings. The aim of our study was to explore medical students’ engagement, presence, experiences and perceptions of a VR GP home visit, alongside the experiences and perceptions of educators.
Methods:
This mixed methods study designed and piloted a 360-degree VR simulation of a general practice (GP) home visit to support CBME in a respiratory case. Pre-questionnaires assessed all participants’ digital competence and VR experience, followed by post-tests for students measuring their engagement (User Engagement Scale) and presence (Multimodal Presence Scale). Focus groups were conducted to explore students’ and educators’ experiences and perceptions. Quantitative data were analysed using correlation, regression and mediation analysis, whilst reflexive thematic analysis was used to identify themes from focus groups.
Results:
Forty-five medical students and 14 educators participated in the VR intervention, with 31 students and 14 educators contributing to focus groups. Results showed that VR interest was significantly associated with participants’ engagement, mediated by presence. Physical presence scored highest, while social/self-presence was lower, reflecting limited interactivity. Qualitative findings highlighted VR’s immersive potential, and its use a complementary tool to support community-based medical education. Discussion: VR CBME focussed scenarios have the potential to address placement capacity issues and complement existing simulation-based education. They should be carefully designed to balance immersion and interactivity, and reflect more complex social scenarios to capitalise on the safe, formative environment VR provides. They should also be cognisant that digital competency in students doesn’t correlate with engagement. Practice Points: • It is possible to design effective community-based medical education (CBME) VR scenarios that can prepare students for practice. • VR in CBME has the potential to simulate more complex interactions in this setting, address placement capacity issues, and complement existing simulation-based education. • Thoughtful design that balances immersion and interactivity in VR fosters engagement. • Digital competence doesn’t necessarily predict engagement with VR, highlighting the need for adequate orientation to the technology.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.