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Using Virtual Patients to Assess and Improve Clinicians’ Emotional Self-awareness: a Randomized Controlled Study

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Abstract

Objective

Working with suicidal patients can elicit negative emotional responses that can impede clinicians’ empathy and affect clinical outcomes. Virtual human interactions represent a promising tool to train clinicians. The present study investigated the impact of virtual human interaction training to enhance clinicians’ emotional self-awareness and empathy when working with suicidal patients.

Methods

Clinicians were randomly assigned into two groups. Both groups interviewed a virtual patient presenting with a suicidal crisis; clinicians in the intervention condition (n = 31) received immediate feedback about negative emotional responses and empathic communication, whereas those in the control condition (n = 33) did not receive any feedback. All clinicians interviewed a second virtual patient 1 week later. Clinicians’ emotional response to the two virtual patients and their empathic communication with each of them were assessed immediately after each interaction. Linear mixed models were used to assess change in clinicians’ emotional response and verbal empathy between the two interactions across conditions.

Results

Clinicians’ emotional responses toward the suicidal virtual patients were unchanged in both conditions. Clinicians in the intervention condition presenting low empathy level with the first virtual patient showed higher empathy level with the second virtual patient than with the first (B = 1.15, SE = 0.25, p < 0.001, 95% CI [0.42, 1.89]).

Conclusions

This work demonstrates the feasibility of using virtual human interactions to improve empathic communication skills in clinicians with poor empathy skills. Further refinement of this methodology is needed to create effective training modules for a broader array of clinicians.

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Data Availability

The datasets generated during and/or analyzed during the current study are available from the corresponding author on reasonable request.

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Funding

This work was supported by the R34 MH119294-01 grant from the National Institute of Mental Health (NIMH).

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Icahn School of Medicine at Mount Sinai, New York, NY, USA

    Giuseppe Sarli, Sarah Bloch-Elkouby, Olivia C. Lawrence & Igor Galynker

  2. Texas State University, San Marcos, TX, USA

    Megan L. Rogers

  3. Ferkauf Graduate School of Psychology, Yeshiva University, New York, NY, USA

    Sarah Bloch-Elkouby

  4. University of Florida, Gainesville, FL, USA

    Alexandre Gomes de Siqueira, Heng Yao & Benjamin Lok

  5. Hospital Corporation of America Florida Woodmont Hospital, Tamarac, FL, USA

    Adriana Foster

Authors
  1. Giuseppe Sarli
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  2. Megan L. Rogers
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  3. Sarah Bloch-Elkouby
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  4. Olivia C. Lawrence
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  5. Alexandre Gomes de Siqueira
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  7. Benjamin Lok
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  8. Adriana Foster
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  9. Igor Galynker
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Correspondence to Giuseppe Sarli.

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Sarli, G., Rogers, M.L., Bloch-Elkouby, S. et al. Using Virtual Patients to Assess and Improve Clinicians’ Emotional Self-awareness: a Randomized Controlled Study. Acad Psychiatry 48, 18–28 (2024). https://doi.org/10.1007/s40596-023-01909-z

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