BRIEF RESEARCH REPORT article
Front. Med.
Sec. Healthcare Professions Education
This article is part of the Research TopicTransform Medicine through Extended Reality (XR): Technologies, Education, Ethics, and Clinical ApplicationsView all 6 articles
Feasibility of a brief group-based immersive 360° mindfulness program for stress-related outcomes in health sciences students: a 4-week pre–post pilot study
Provisionally accepted
Gabriel Roma1
Oriol Yuguero2,3*- 1Universitat de Lleida, Lleida, Spain
- 2Lleida Institute for Biomedical Research (IRBLleida), Lleida, Spain
- 3Universitat Oberta de Catalunya, Barcelona, Spain
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Background: Medical and nursing students experience high stress that can impair well-being and training. Immersive technologies may offer brief, scalable relaxation. MK360 combines short guided mindfulness with immersive 360° projection in a shared multisensory room environment without wearables. Objective: To assess feasibility and explore short-term changes in perceived stress and immediate autonomic arousal following a brief, predominantly group-based immersive 360° mindfulness program in medical and nursing students. Methods: Single-site pre–post pilot at the University of Lleida. Students attended four ~20-minute MK360 sessions over 4 weeks. Heart rate (HR) and blood pressure (SBP/DBP) were recorded immediately before and after each session. The Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-14), the Goldberg Anxiety and Depression Scale-anxiety subscale (GADS/EADG), and the Maslach Burnout Inventory-Student Survey (MBI-SS) were administered at baseline and endline. Pre–post changes were tested. Results: 26 students initiated the study, and 18 completed all assessments (completion 69.2%). Perceived stress decreased from baseline to endline, but did not reach statistical significance. Burnout subscales showed non-significant directional changes (exhaustion and cynicism decreased; academic efficacy increased). Anxiety scores showed no material change. Immediate pre-to post-session reductions were observed for HR and SBP across sessions; DBP decreased in sessions 2 and 4 but not in sessions 1 and 3. Among completers, 50.0% reported feeling somewhat better emotionally. Conclusions: MK360 was feasible and well tolerated, with signals consistent with reduced perceived stress over 4 weeks . Given the uncontrolled design and small sample, causal inference is not warranted; controlled studies should confirm effectiveness, examine dose–response, and compare delivery formats.
Keywords: Feasibility study, Health sciences students, Immersive 360° projection, mindfulness, perceived stress
Received: 06 Nov 2025; Accepted: 10 Feb 2026.
Copyright: © 2026 Roma and Yuguero. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Oriol Yuguero
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