Effectiveness of virtual reality intervention in promoting sustainable hand hygiene for community participants: A mixed methods approach

Hand hygiene compliance is well known as an important measure in preventing the transmission of infectious disease. Even though general public was aware of this health message during the COVID-19 pandemic, sustaining such personal hygiene behavior is difficult. While personal hygiene virtual reality intervention via an immersive experience has been found as an effective health promotion strategy, its prior implementation was mostly among healthcare workers but not among people in the community. Using a mixed methods approach, this study draws on the theory of planned behaviors to design two experimental studies for testing this interventional approach's sustainability and applicability to the general population. The result confirmed the virtual reality scenario with both presence and embodiment demonstrated a more sustainable treatment effect in boosting individual's self-efficacy over other experimental arms. Post-hoc analysis revealed the reduction of perceived barrier after exposure to immersive environment was attributable to treatment effect. The findings were reconfirmed through triangulation in the qualitative post-intervention interviews. Finally, we highlight the theoretical and practical implication of the study for the future development of personal hygiene immersive environment-based intervention.