GAMIFICATION IN EDUCATION: CHANGING THE ATTITUDE OF MEDICAL STUDENTS TOWARDS DEMENTIA BY USING VIRTUAL REALITY (PILOT STUDY)

The aim of the study was to change the attitudes of medical students towards elderly people with dementia in a positive way and to raise awareness of the importance of studying dementia in the elderly by using virtual reality tools. Hungarian (n = 20) and foreign (n = 20) medical students could experience what it would be like to be an elderly, demented person for 5 minutes by using a virtual reality application. Before and after the experiment, they completed a questionnaire and expressed their opinion on a Likert scale (0-6 points). The evaluation was made by using the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. The attitude of foreign and Hungarian medical students changed significantly in a positive way regarding the importance of studying dementia in the elderly (Z = 18, p < 0.078 and Z = 7.5, p < 0.187 respectively), judging the difficulty of lives of elderly people with dementia (Z = 20, p < 0.0078 and Z = 27.5, p < 0.002 respectively), judging their empathy for elderly people with dementia (Z = 32, p < 0.00112 and Z = 55.5, p < 0.0005 respectively), understanding thinking of elderly people with dementia (Z = 79 p < 0.0001 and Z = 59, p < 0.026 respectively), regarding the likelihood of taking steps to prevent their own dementia (Z = 27.5 p < 0.002 and Z = 27.5, p < 0.002 respectively). The study demonstrated the importance and the effectiveness of applying virtual reality tools in educating medical students.