Technology in undergraduate Physiotherapy Education

This project addresses a critical gap in physiotherapy education: developing clinical reasoning skills for pain management. Pain is a primary reason patients seek physiotherapy, and as physiotherapists increasingly serve as first-contact practitioners—especially in Europe—strong clinical reasoning is essential. The project targets challenges in clinical placements, where limited capacity often restricts students' exposure to real patients, hindering their ability to apply theoretical knowledge in practice. To bridge this gap, the project uses virtual reality (VR) technology to create immersive virtual patient cases, allowing students to develop clinical reasoning in a safe, controlled environment. VR enhances knowledge retention, improves decision-making, and ensures standardization across institutions, overcoming geographical and resource disparities. Beyond clinical skills, the project promotes competencies such as communication, empathy, and teamwork, which are vital for holistic care. With collaboration from academic partners in Ireland and the Netherlands, the project has created a transformative framework for physiotherapy education, preparing students to deliver better patient care.

The project objectives are focused on mapping clinical reasoning skills teaching, pain management and clinical placement with a view to provide a structured support for linking these components using virtual patients.The project will take advantage of the considerable expertise of all the partners involved to achieve this through the various project activities and outputs that can be utilised by academics and students across Europe. VR PAIN has 3 core objectives: (j) Curriculum reviewing and mapping process to develop a matrix that demonstrates where, when, how clinical reasoning skills, pain management and clinical placement occur in physiotherapy programmes and identifies which aspects of the curriculum can encompass VR-based. (ii) Enhance the development of clinical reasoning skills in pain management through established User Experience (Ux) educational design principles and VR interactive experience (iii) Provide a Technology Assessment Model (TAM) for the standardisation of clinical reasoning knowledge and skills for students and graduates across Europe and beyond through reusable 3D assets educational resources (VR clinical cases).

WP1: PROJECT MANAGEMENT: ensured alignment with objectives, budget & communication. 20 virtual meetings, a dissemination plan, regular progress updates, budget reviews, ethics approvals (n=5), content production & external expert feedback for evaluation. WP2: MAPPING CURRICULA: Mapped content of clinical reasoning and pain education against the EFIC core pain science curriculum. Collected stakeholder input (students & patients) on skills required for managing patients across physiotherapy programme (2023) Created and evaluated 3 VR cases (acute & chronic low back pain & acute post-surgery pain). Feedback during development obtained from stakeholders [Chronic Pain Ireland (4), UCD & UCC physiotherapy students (8), academic tutors (3), staff (5), and tech staff (2)] (May 2023). Academic paper submitted for publication (Annex: WP2&4 papers -Deegan et al, Arch Phy Med Rehab) WP3 VR DEVELOPMENT: environment design, toolkit development & integration & evaluation. WP4: VR TOOL INTERVENTION & EVALUATION: UCD (37), HU (40), UCC (50) evaluated VR PAIN cases with qualitative & quantitative measures. Presented project (poster & platform) at national & international conferences. Academic paper under development (WP2&4 papers Fullen et al)

The VR PAIN project outputs & results: (i)Open educational resources 3 VR clinical cases (acute & chronic low back pain & acute pain post surgery) developed (annex: WP2.3 & WP3.1-3) VR-PAIN supporting material (student & installation manuals)(platform) Whilst not in the proposal we have an opportunity to disseminate results on the European Network of Physiotherapists in Higher Education (ENPHE) website (end 2025). ENPHE represents 156 academic institutions in 31 countries - significant dissemination avenue providing free access to high quality resources. (ii) Dissemination (WP1: Dissemination) Two academic papers: WP2 -submitted & WP4 (drafted) (WP2&4 academic papers) Conferences: Platform XRPAIN Congress, Amsterdam 2023; European University Information Systems (EUNIS), Athens 2024, Practice Educator Network (PECNET), online 2024, Irish Society of Chartered Physiotherapists annual meeting, Dublin, 2025 (workshop) Posters: Irish Pain Society, Dublin 2024, World Congress VR, Amsterdam 2024, European Pain Federation 2025 (accepted) (iii) Interconnectivity among European universities The project strengthens the interconnectivity between european universities, promoting collaboration in both education and research