The effect of Virtual Reality Integrated Exercise on the Subjective Exercise Experience, Resilience, and Coping Style for clinical medical students

Background Exercise demonstrates substantial practical value and exerts statistically significant positive effects on mental health promotion. Meanwhile, virtual reality technology has emerged as the creative methodology in psychological research. The integration of virtual reality with exercise represents a growing trend that drives advancements in the field of students’ development. The aim of this study was to investigate the effects of virtual reality integrated exercise intervention on clinical medical students' psychological outcomes. And to assess if there was a difference in students’ subjective exercise experience, resilience, and coping styles between those who participated in virtual reality integrated exercise teaching intervention compared to those who participated in a traditional teaching strategy. Methods The study enrolled 81 clinical medical students from North China University of Science and Technology, randomly allocated to either the intervention group (n=40) or control group (n=41). The control group participated in traditional physical education (table tennis), while the intervention group participated in a virtual reality integrated exercise program. Data collection tools included the Resilience questionnaires, Coping style questionnaires, Subjective exercise experience questionnaires, which were completed one week before and after the intervention by each clinical student. The data were analyzed through independent t-tests, paired t-tests, and pearson’s correlation. The significance level was set at P<0.05. Results The average positive happiness scores were significantly higher in the intervention group compared to the control group in the post-test, p<0.05. The intervention group demonstrated significantly reduced psychological distress scores relative to control group in post-testing. All three indicators related to resilience have significantly improved after participated in virtual reality integrated exercise. The positive coping scores of intervention group were higher than the control group, p<0.05. The student’s positive happiness scores was significantly positively correlated with fortitude scores and optimistic scores and positive coping scores in the post-test, p<0.05. Conclusions The findings of this study demonstrate that virtual reality integrated exercise approach effectively enhanced clinical medical students' subjective exercise experience, resilience, and coping styles. Furthermore, the subjective exercise experience serves as a critical determinant of both resilience and coping styles. Given these positive outcomes, it is recommended that this integrated method can be as the course for clinical medical students’ university learning.