Virtual reality-based advanced life support serious game

This thesis investigates the development and learning outcome of an immersive virtual reality (VR) serious game designed to improve the training of medical professionals in Advanced Life Support (ALS) procedures. More than a million healthcare professionals partake in ALS training each year. This high demand for highly skilled healthcare providers proficient in time-sensitive emergency interventions necessitates innovative approaches to training. The software developed for this thesis aims to facilitate this training process while paying proper attention to non-technical aspects of ALS that are generally overlooked by similar training serious games. This serious game is developed in Unity game engine using C# for Unity scripts and plug-ins. The scores of users are sent to a database using Experience Application Programming Interface (xAPI) calls and stored using a Learning Management System (LMS) and a Learning Record Store (LRS). There are two training modes and a final test mode that scores the user. An initial study was conducted on 29 participants to compare the efficiency of VR training and conventional training. One group trained in VR and the other trained in a classroom setting, before all participants took the same test. Another follow-up study was conducted on 12 participants to check the correlation of the scores form the VR test mode and a more conventional hands-on manikin simulation where all participants took both tests to see if their results were statistically similar. The findings show that VR training is non-inferior to conventional training for the most part and that VR test scores correlate with conventional test scores. These findings combined with the advantages of being a self-service training software indicate that this serious game can be utilized effectively as an additional training resource, and even shows potential to replace classroom training in the near future. Keywords: Advanced Life Support, Virtual Reality, Serious Game, Training Simulation.