Virtual Environments for Patients with Obsessive Compulsive Disorder in Outpatient Care
DOI:
https://doi.org/10.54337/aau.icdvrat26.20Abstract
This paper describes an RCT study examining VR-based exposure and response prevention (VR-ERP) therapy as an addition to standard care for outpatients with obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD). A within-subject waitlist-controlled design is used; a 5-week waitlist followed by five weekly VR-ERP sessions. Symptom severity was measured using the Subjective Yale-Brown Obsessive-Compulsive Scale (YBOCS-SR) at study intake, after the waitlist period, after the VR-ERP period, and at a 2-month follow-up. Results show a significant reduction in OCD symptoms following VR-ERP (p < .001), maintained at follow-up (p = .001). Participants reported engagement in between-session exposures and rated the VR-ERP as useful.
References
American Psychiatric Association. (2013). Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders. American Psychiatric Association.
Fajnerová, I., Francová, A., Taranzová, K., Darmová, B., Kosová, E., & Stopková, P. (2023). Virtual reality environment for exposure therapy in obsessive–compulsive disorder: a validation study. Virtual Reality, 27(3), 2691–2701.
Freeman, D., Reeve, S., Robinson, A., Ehlers, A., Clark, D., Spanlang, B., & Slater, M. (2017). Virtual reality in the assessment, understanding, and treatment of mental health disorders. Psychological Medicine, 47(14), 2393–2400.
Ong, C. W., Clyde, J. W., Bluett, E. J., Levin, M. E., & Twohig, M. P. (2016). Dropout rates in exposure with response prevention for obsessive-compulsive disorder: What do the data really say? Journal of Anxiety Disorders, 40, 8–17.
Bouchard, S., Laforest, M., Gamito, P., & Cardenas-Lopez, G. (2019). Using VR for obsessive-compulsive and related disorders. In A. "S." Rizzo & S. Bouchard (Eds.), Virtual reality for psychological and neurocognitive interventions (pp. 103–130). Springer Nature Switzerland AG. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-1-4939-9482-3_5
