Version 1
: Received: 27 September 2024 / Approved: 27 September 2024 / Online: 30 September 2024 (13:03:32 CEST)
How to cite:
Simon, S.; Opfermann, P.; Hofstaetter, J.; Marhofer, A. P. Virtual Reality-Assisted Informed Consent for Anesthesia: A Prospective and Randomized Proof-of-Concept Study. Preprints2024, 2024092287. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.2287.v1
Simon, S.; Opfermann, P.; Hofstaetter, J.; Marhofer, A. P. Virtual Reality-Assisted Informed Consent for Anesthesia: A Prospective and Randomized Proof-of-Concept Study. Preprints 2024, 2024092287. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.2287.v1
Simon, S.; Opfermann, P.; Hofstaetter, J.; Marhofer, A. P. Virtual Reality-Assisted Informed Consent for Anesthesia: A Prospective and Randomized Proof-of-Concept Study. Preprints2024, 2024092287. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.2287.v1
APA Style
Simon, S., Opfermann, P., Hofstaetter, J., & Marhofer, A. P. (2024). Virtual Reality-Assisted Informed Consent for Anesthesia: A Prospective and Randomized Proof-of-Concept Study. Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.2287.v1
Chicago/Turabian Style
Simon, S., Jochen Hofstaetter and and Peter Marhofer. 2024 "Virtual Reality-Assisted Informed Consent for Anesthesia: A Prospective and Randomized Proof-of-Concept Study" Preprints. https://doi.org/10.20944/preprints202409.2287.v1
Abstract
Background/Objectives: Informed consent for anesthesia poses both legal challenges and problems of understandable communication. Fulfilling all requirements through anesthesiologists directly interacting with patients is a time- and staff-consuming strategy. Given today's smart technologies, notably including virtual reality (VR), we explored in a prospective randomized study whether 'VR-assisted informed consent' could improve this situation. Methods: Fifty patients scheduled for orthopedic surgery were randomized. In the control group, informed consent was obtained via patient-specialist dialogs only. The patients in the study group, wearing a head-mount display, watched an 8-minute immersive 3D movie with standard explanations of general anesthesia, followed by a patient-specialist dialog to address open question. The time spent on the dialogs in both groups was evaluated as primary outcome variable. As secondary variables, we analyzed both a three-item Likert scale on patient satisfaction with the VR experience and cost differences between both groups. Results: Patient-specialist dialogs were carried on for median (IQR) durations of 93 (20–182) seconds in the study group versus 665 (261–829) seconds in the control group (P<0.001). All patients exposed to VR rated this experience as favorable (87.5%) or neutral (12.5%). Based on anesthesiologists' incomes in the US and UK, our approach would reduce the staff expenditure for each patient-specialist dialog by median amounts of ≈40 or ≈11 US dollars, respectively (2× P<0.001). Conclusions: 'VR-assisted informed consent' for anesthesia is well accepted by patients and reduces the time requirements for patient-specialist dialogs, thus pointing out a potential avenue towards increasing the work-time efficiency of anesthesiologists.
Medicine and Pharmacology, Anesthesiology and Pain Medicine
Copyright:
This is an open access article distributed under the Creative Commons Attribution License which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited.
