Creation of virtual patients for midwifery education.

Objective: The objective of the study was to create several new, original virtual patients (VPs) in the Slovak language, especially for educational purposes in midwifery.

Setting: Virtual patients have been created for the needs of university midwifery education in Slovakia.

Model: The creation of the six virtual patients basically consisted of three fixed stages: preparation, design and development, implementation into the virtual environment. We used the Open Labyrinth (OL) virtual environment, an open-source system for creating VPs. The VPs include six various scenarios of the most common problems seen in midwifery practice: preterm birth, perinatal loss, gestational diabetes, ineffective breastfeeding, postpartum bleeding and sudden home birth.

Findings: Currently, six original virtual patients are used in university midwifery education in Slovakia. We use them for contact teaching as well as self-study of students. They present the first VPs in Slovakia and the Czech Republic created in academic settings in these countries.

Conclusions: The future perspective of a virtual patient as an interactive process between the student and the medium is that it can deepen and improve learning outcomes, solve specific midwifery issues, and reduce mistakes in the clinical environment.