Virtual patients: an option for future distance midwifery education?

Background: The objective is to introduce the creating a set of virtual patients (VPs) to support distance midwifery education as well as the impact of distance education by means of VPs on knowledge, skills, motivation, clinical practice, and student satisfaction.

Methods: VPs were created using OpenLabyrinth (OL). The impact of the distance education was assessed using a feedback questionnaire.

Results: When creating our own VPs, the design and development phase can be considered the most difficult. On a scale of 1 (agree) to 4 (disagree), the student feedback rates were mostly positive (1.04-2.13). A high degree of agreement was associated with the acquisition of theoretical knowledge (1.15-1.28) and skills (1.43).

Conclusions: The creation of our own VPs is challenging for teachers due to its unconventional character. The students expressed great satisfaction with distance learning, but lacked face-to-face contact with the patient.