Virtual Interaction Training in Emotional Self-Awareness for Working with Suicidal Patients

Clinicians working with suicidal patients often experience high stress, which can contribute to negative emotional responses. These negative emotions can contribute to clinicians being less empathic, and they may unintentionally push patients away, harming the therapeutic relationship and worsening patient outcomes. Therefore, clinicians may need additional training on emotional self-awareness and empathic communication to manage potential negative emotions and improve their effectiveness with suicidal patients. One way of achieving this is with virtual human interaction training (VHI), which presents clinicians with virtually developed patients exhibiting a variety of clinical scenarios while measuring clinical effectiveness and empathic communication.

As part of a multi-site linked AFSP grant, Dr. Igor Galynker and Dr. Benjamin Lok tested two virtual human interaction training conditions: one with instructions on verbal empathic communication and reminders to report negative emotions during virtual sessions (i.e., scaffolded), and one without any reminders or instructions (i.e., non-scaffolded). Sixty-two clinicians participated in three VHI sessions.

Results showed that negative emotions decreased in both groups after two training sessions. The scaffolded group improved empathic communication after one training session, while the non-scaffolded group improved after two. Surprisingly, the non-scaffolded group had better clinical efficacy after two training sessions, while the scaffolded group did not. It turns out this was likely due to the method of providing reminders which may have been distracting. These results support VHI’s ability to improve emotional awareness and empathic communication in clinicians and suggest that nonverbal expressions of empathy may be crucial for working with suicidal patients.

Citation: Yao, H., Gomes de Siqueira, A., Rogers, M. L., Bloch-Elkouby, S., Lawrence, O., Sarli, G., Foster, A., Mitelman, S. A., Galynker, I., & Lok, B. (2024). The impact of scaffolded and non-scaffolded suicidal virtual human interaction training on clinician emotional self-awareness, empathic communication, and clinical efficacy. BMC medical education, 24(1), 413. https://doi.org/10.1186/s12909-024-05371-9