SynthesisBMC medical education2022
The effectiveness of using virtual patient educational tools to improve medical students' clinical reasoning skills: a systematic review.
Synthesis in BMC medical education, 2022. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 68 papers, 6 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
68 citing papers in PubMed, 6 syntheses or guidelines pooled it.
- Global trends and thematic clusters in healthcare professional education, medical errors, and patient safety: a bibliometric analysis, 2000-2026.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Virtual patients in medical education: a bibliometric analysis based on the wos core collection and scopus databases.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Pooled it
- Identifying Research Priorities in Digital Education for Health Care: Umbrella Review and Modified Delphi Method Study.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Pooled it
- Could Empathy Be Taught? The Role of Advanced Technologies to Foster Empathy in Medical Students and Healthcare Professionals: A Systematic Review.Journal of medical systems · 2025Pooled it
- Integrating virtual patients into undergraduate health professions curricula: a framework synthesis of stakeholders' opinions based on a systematic literature review.BMC medical education · 2024Pooled it
- Reflecting on gamified learning in medical education: a systematic literature review grounded in the Structure of Observed Learning Outcomes (SOLO) taxonomy 2012-2022.BMC medical education · 2024Pooled it
- The effect of AI-enabled virtual patient simulation on training outcomes and insecurities in psychotherapy education.BMC medical education · 2026Trial
- Integrating virtual patient-based learning into temporomandibular disorder education improves educational and behavioral outcomes.BMC medical education · 2026Trial
- Virtual patients versus standardized patients for improving clinical reasoning skills in ophthalmology residents. A randomized controlled trial.BMC medical education · 2024Trial
- A scoping review on the use of virtual patients for enhancing empathy in medical students.Medical education online · 2026Article
- Application of digital simulations for clinical assessment and documentation of temporomandibular disorders: a retrospective study.Oral surgery, oral medicine, oral pathology and oral radiology · 2026Article
- Finding the right words: preparing medical students for communication on the wish for hastened death - medical students' perceptions of drama-based and online communication training.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Virtual patients and learning communication skills at "double speed": a qualitative study using the TPACK framework.Advances in simulation (London, England) · 2026Article
- High resolution images and 3D models of the root canal anatomy enhance reflective reasoning in dental students. A qualitative and quantitative assessment.Anatomical sciences education · 2026Article
- Artificial Intelligence in Psychiatric Graduate Medical Education.Academic psychiatry : the journal of the American Association of Directors of Psychiatric Residency Training and the Association for Academic Psychiatry · 2026Article
- Cost-effectiveness of virtual patient integration in dermatology education: evidence for precision education by learner expertise.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- A structured teaching module for postoperative follow-up in urology residency training: development and evaluation of an IMDB-based educational tool.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- A virtual patient-based training program to enhance clinical decision-making competencies in general practice residents: mixed-methods study.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- AI-powered simulated patients with automated feedback for enhancing headache history-taking skills: a convergent mixed-methods study.BMC medical education · 2026Article
- Early Development of Clinical Reasoning Through Virtual Patient Simulation: Nursing Students' Perceptions of Collaborative Decision-Making.Nursing reports (Pavia, Italy) · 2026Article
8 more citing papers are in PubMed but not listed here.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
Abstract
backgroundUse of virtual patient educational tools could fill the current gap in the teaching of clinical reasoning skills. However, there is a limited understanding of their effectiveness. The aim of this study was to synthesise the evidence to understand the effectiveness of virtual patient tools aimed at improving undergraduate medical students' clinical reasoning skills.
methodsWe searched MEDLINE, EMBASE, CINAHL, ERIC, Scopus, Web of Science and PsycINFO from 1990 to January 2022, to identify all experimental articles testing the effectiveness of virtual patient educational tools on medical students' clinical reasoning skills. Quality of the articles was assessed using an adapted form of the MERSQI and the Newcastle-Ottawa Scale. A narrative synthesis summarised intervention features, how virtual patient tools were evaluated and reported effectiveness.
resultsThe search revealed 8,186 articles, with 19 articles meeting the inclusion criteria. Average study quality was moderate (M = 6.5, SD = 2.7), with nearly half not reporting any measurement of validity or reliability for their clinical reasoning outcome measure (8/19, 42%). Eleven articles found a positive effect of virtual patient tools on reasoning (11/19, 58%). Four reported no significant effect and four reported mixed effects (4/19, 21%). Several domains of clinical reasoning were evaluated. Data gathering, ideas about diagnosis and patient management were more often found to improve after virtual patient use (34/47 analyses, 72%) than application of knowledge, flexibility in thinking and problem-solving (3/7 analyses, 43%).
conclusionsUsing virtual patient tools could effectively complement current teaching especially if opportunities for face-to-face teaching or other methods are limited, as there was some evidence that virtual patient educational tools can improve undergraduate medical students' clinical reasoning skills. Evaluations that measured more case specific clinical reasoning domains, such as data gathering, showed more consistent improvement than general measures like problem-solving. Case specific measures might be more sensitive to change given the context dependent nature of clinical reasoning. Consistent use of validated clinical reasoning measures is needed to enable a meta-analysis to estimate effectiveness.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.