Virtual environments to study emotional responses to clinical communication: A scoping review

Objective This scoping review explores the potential for virtual environments (VE) to evaluate emotional outcomes in clinical communication research. Authors representing multiple disciplines use review results to propose potential research opportunities and considerations. Methods We utilized a structured framework for scoping reviews. We searched four literature databases for relevant articles. We applied multidisciplinary perspectives to synthesize relevant potential opportunities for emotion-focused communications research using VE. Results Twenty-one articles met inclusion criteria. They applied different methodological approaches, including a range of VE technologies and diverse emotional outcome measures, such as psychophysiological arousal, emotional valence, or empathy. Major research topics included use of virtual reality to provoke and measure emotional responses, train clinicians in communication skills, and increase clinician empathy. Conclusion Researchers may leverage VE technologies to ethically and systematically examine how characteristics of clinical interactions, environments, and communication impact emotional reactions and responses among patients and clinicians. Variability exists in how VE technologies are employed and reported in published literature, and this may limit the internal and external validity of the research. However, virtual reality can provide a low-cost, low-risk, experimentally controlled, and ecologically valid approach for studying clinician-patient communication. Practice implications Future research should leverage psychophysiological measures to further examine emotional responses during clinical communication scenarios and clearly report virtual environment characteristics to support evaluation of study conclusions, study replicability, and meta-analyses.