REPLICA: Development and Evaluation of an Immersive First-Person Simulation Platform for Psychiatric Education
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54337/aau.icdvrat26.47Abstract
Understanding the subjective experience of psychiatric disorders is challenging in clinical education. This study presents REPLICA, a virtual reality application simulating psychiatric symptoms from a first-person perspective. The system was evaluated across two student cohorts using an early prototype and an optimized version. Participants completed measures of usability (SUS), presence (IPQ), and simulator sickness (SSQ). Usability significantly improved in the optimized version, while presence remained stable. Cybersickness decreased, though not significantly. Qualitative responses confirmed that participants recognized key symptoms of the simulated disorders. These findings indicate that system improvements enhanced usability without reducing immersion, supporting VR as an effective tool for experiential psychiatric education.
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