CRITICAL EVALUATION OF THE USABILITY OF AUGMENTED REALITY OPHTHALMOSCOPY FOR THE TRAINING OF INEXPERIENCED EXAMINERS

Abstract

In Brief Purpose: To measure the value of augmented reality technology usage to teach the medical students performing binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy. Methods: Thirty-seven medical students were randomly assigned to the training of binocular indirect ophthalmoscopy either in the conventional way or with augmented reality ophthalmoscopy (ARO). For testing student's skills, they had to examine a real person using a conventional ophthalmoscopy system and draw the optic disk. They also had to fill out a questionnaire. Subjective and objective evaluations were performed. Results: Thirty-seven students were randomly assigned to two groups. Eighteen students were trained with conventional ophthalmoscopy and 19 students with ARO. The questionnaires showed no differences. Performing an objective analysis, the median ophthalmoscopy training score for the conventional ophthalmoscopy group was 1.2 (range, 0.67–2) and showed a significant difference (P < 0.0033) to the ARO group (median 2; range, 0.67–2). Conclusion: The study provides evidence that a single ARO training is efficient to improve ophthalmoscopy skills. As the objective analysis showed, the ARO group had a significantly superior performance. Our study also indicates that subjective evaluation of the fundus drawings without systematic analysis is prone to errors. The education of the medical students might benefit from the use of a training simulator. After the medical students have received one single short simulator training, they were able to carry out the ophthalmoscopy, as the good results regarding the localization of optic disk vessels prove. Evaluation of the skills should be made with an objective score system.