Peripheral intravenous catheter insertion is one of the most common invasive medical procedures performed in hospitals. However, the success rate is significantly low and failure to place the catheter correctly can have a strain on healthcare resources, delay patient diagnosis and treatment, and lead to serious health risks for the patient. Ultrasound guidance has become a well-established solution for facilitating needle insertion and guiding the catheter into the target vein. Despite the increased success rate that ultrasound guidance offers, practitioners must be able to manipulate the ultrasound probe and the needle together and coordinate their movements while interpreting the ultrasound image. Effective training is therefore crucial to success in performing the procedure. Virtual reality training simulators allow medical professionals to practice such procedures, and haptic medical devices make it possible to simulate the force feedback that one would feel during a real procedure. Many studies have focused on improving the realism or the performance of haptic medical simulators but have neglected their impact on the user’s ability to acquire the required skills.
The objective of this research is to evaluate the effect of haptic feedback on learning an ultrasound guided peripheral intravenous catheter insertion procedure in virtual reality. We propose a haptic-enabled virtual reality simulator for training and periodic evaluation of the procedure. The study compares the learning curves of two groups of participants, with one group using the simulator with haptic force feedback enabled and the other with haptic force feedback disabled, in order to determine whether learning the medical procedure with haptic feedback is more effective. The learning curve analysis allows for objective monitoring of performance evolution over time.
A user study was carried out with 31 participants, all novices in intravenous catheter insertion and ultrasound guidance. Each participant was randomly assigned to use the simulator either with or without haptic feedback over the course of three sessions each spaced a week apart. Each participant took part in an interactive training scenario within the simulator to learn each step of the procedure and completed three performance evaluation sessions. Performance metrics included procedure completion time, the number of needle insertion attempts, the needle insertion angle, error rate, needle tip tracking, ultrasound probe motion economy and needle motion economy. Both groups improved significantly in all performance metrics except for error rate and needle insertion angle. The results demonstrated that haptic feedback improves performance more quickly in terms of needle angulation skills. However, the haptic group made more needle insertion attempts and demonstrated lower needle motion economy. User experience evaluation revealed that haptic feedback contributes to a greater sense of involvement and enhances perceived examination capabilities. The results suggest that haptic force feedback is a promising training approach for tasks involving a high degree of exploration and hand-eye coordination. CHAPTER 4 of this thesis presents an article that was submitted to the ISMAR 2026 conference and describes the development of the simulator as well as the results of the user study.
| Date | 19 Aug 2026 |
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| Original language | French |
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| Awarding Institution | - École de technologie supérieure
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| Supervisor | Simon Drouin (Supervisor) |
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Catwell, N. (Author),
Drouin (Supervisor),
19 Aug 2026Student thesis: Master's thesis › Master in Engineering: Information Technology Engineering