Empathy is considered a cornerstone of high-quality health care and a required element of nursing education. Although computer role-playing games (CRPGs) are a promising tool to promote clinical empathy, little is known about how and why it is effective at improving empathy. The goal of the current study is to investigate the feasibility and effectiveness of a CRPG on nursing students' empathy with a focus on immersiveness and perspective. Results from a 2 × 2 (virtual reality [VR] vs. non-VR × patient's family's perspective vs. health care provider's perspective) between-subjects experiment (N = 69) showed that playing the game in VR (vs. non-VR) led to greater spatial presence and empathy. Moreover, playing from the health care provider's (vs. patient's family's) perspective elicited greater empathy. A moderated mediation effect was found, suggesting that users' attention allocation significantly mediated the effect of immersiveness on empathy in the patient's family's perspective condition. These findings show the feasibility of using a role-playing game for nursing education. Both theoretical and practical implications involving empathy training were discussed, along with suggestions for further research.

中文翻译：

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计算机角色扮演游戏促进护理学生同理心的可行性：沉浸感和视角的作用

同理心被认为是高质量医疗保健的基石，也是护理教育的必要元素。尽管计算机角色扮演游戏 (CRPG) 是一种很有前途的促进临床同理心的工具，但人们对其如何以及为何能有效提高同理心知之甚少。当前研究的目标是调查 CRPG 对护生同理心的可行性和有效性，重点是沉浸感和视角。来自 2 × 2（虚拟现实 [VR] 与非 VR × 患者家属的观点与医疗保健提供者的观点）受试者间实验的结果 ( N = 69) 表明在 VR 中玩游戏（与非 VR 相比）会导致更大的空间存在感和同理心。此外，从医疗保健提供者（相对于患者家属）的角度进行游戏会引起更大的共鸣。发现了一种调节的中介效应，表明用户的注意力分配显着介导了沉浸感对患者家属视角条件下共情的影响。这些发现显示了使用角色扮演游戏进行护理教育的可行性。讨论了涉及同理心训练的理论和实践意义，并提出了进一步研究的建议。