Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Driving Phobia Disorder (2): System Refinement and Verification

SAFEvR MentalVeRse.app: Development of a Free Immersive Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Acrophobia and Claustrophobia

Background: Specific phobias impact over 400 million people worldwide. Digitalizing mental health could alleviate the burden. Still, although the corporate-driven Metaverse is expanding rapidly, there needs to be more momentum in harnessing virtual reality exposure therapy uptake. Objective: This study aims to conceptualize, develop, and deploy a free Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) application specifically designed for treating acrophobia and claustrophobia. This pilot study, which holds the promise of a future where mental health is more accessible and effective, explores the feasibility of leveraging transdisciplinary collaboration among specialists to create a safe, accessible, and effective VRET solution. Methods: We conducted a Delphi heuristic approach involving bioethicists, neuroscientists, and tech developers. Second, we reviewed the existing psychological theories and therapeutic strategies for addressing phobias in VR. Third, we conceptualized a thematic analysis-derived framework for a safe, adaptive-gamified free exposure to virtual reality acrophobia and claustrophobia (SAFEvR ACT). Finally, we provide an overview of the iterative improvements made during 12 workshops and 76 weekly briefings on developmental implementations. Results: We developed the SAFEvR ACT into a proof-of-concept application freely deployed on the MentalVerse app platform. Our safety-focused approach can benefit from prevalidation perspectives within future randomized control trials. Conclusions: The resulting application derived from the SAFEvR ACT framework represents a blueprint to counter the current lack of iVR mental health uptake by offering a free VRET alternative. Future research should aim towards developing similar free platforms to lessen mental health burdens and gather quantitative data. We conclude with a call to action to researchers to fine-tune our current approach and take a stand for free digital mental health within MentalVeRse.app.

Psychological therapy using virtual reality for treatment of driving phobia: a systematic review

PURPOSE

Driving phobia is prevalent in injured individuals following motor vehicle crashes (MVCs). The evidence for virtual reality (VR) based psychological treatments for driving phobia is unknown. This systematic review synthesized the available evidence on the effectiveness, feasibility, and user experience of psychological treatments for driving phobia using VR.

METHODS

Three databases (PsycINFO, SCOPUS, and PubMed) were searched. Eligibility criteria included adults with clinical or sub-clinical levels of driving phobia manifesting as part of an anxiety disorder or post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Primary outcomes were driving-related anxiety/fear or avoidance, PTSD symptoms and driving frequency/intensity, as well as treatment feasibility including recruitment, treatment completion and retention rates, user experience and immersion/presence in the VR program. Secondary outcomes were other health outcomes (e.g., depression) and VR technological features.

RESULTS

The 14 included studies were of low methodological quality. Clinical and methodological heterogeneity prevented quantitative pooling of data. The evidence provided in this review is limited by trials with small sample sizes, and lack of diagnostic clarity, controlled designs, and long-term assessment. The evidence did suggest that VR-based psychological interventions could be feasible and acceptable in this population.

CONCLUSIONS

For VR-based psychological interventions to be recommended for driving phobia, more high-quality trials are needed. Implications for rehabilitationVirtual reality (VR) based psychological treatments may be feasible and acceptable to patients with driving phobia.There is potential to increase accessibility to psychological therapies in patients with driving phobia following motor vehicle crashes through the use of digital psychiatry such as VR.

Development of an Empathy-Centric Counseling Chatbot System Capable of Sentimental Dialogue Analysis

College students encounter various types of stresses in school due to schoolwork, personal relationships, health issues, and future career concerns. Some students are susceptible to the strikes of failures and are inexperienced with or fearful of dealing with setbacks. When these negative emotions gradually accumulate without resolution, they can cause long-term negative effects on students’ physical and mental health. Some potential health problems include depression, anxiety, and disorders such as eating disorders. Universities commonly offer counseling services; however, the demand often exceeds the counseling capacities due to limited numbers of counsellors/psychologists. Thus, students may not receive immediate counseling or treatments. If students are not treated, some repercussions may lead to severe abnormal behavior and even suicide. In this study, combining immersive virtual reality (VR) technique with psychological knowledge base, we developed a VR empathy-centric counseling chatbot (VRECC) that can complementarily support troubled students when counsellors cannot provide immediate support. Through multi-turn (verbal or text) conversations with the chatbot, the system can demonstrate empathy and give therapist-like responses to the users. During the study, more than 120 students were required to complete a questionnaire and 34 subjects with an above-median stress level were randomly drawn for the VRECC experiment. We observed decreasing average stress level and psychological sensitivity scores among subjects after the experiment. Although the system did not yield improvement in life-impact scores (e.g., behavioral and physical impacts), the significant outcomes of lowering stress level and psychological sensitivity have given us a very positive outlook for continuing to integrate VR, AI sentimental natural language process, and counseling chatbot for advanced VRECC research in helping students improve their psychological well-being and life quality at schools.

Virtual Reality Aided Therapy towards Health 4.0: A Two-Decade Bibliometric Analysis

Health 4.0 aligns with Industry 4.0 and encourages the application of the latest technologies to healthcare. Virtual reality (VR) is a potentially significant component of the Health 4.0 vision. Though VR in health care is a popular topic, there is little knowledge of VR-aided therapy from a macro perspective. Therefore, this paper was aimed to explore the research of VR in aiding therapy, thus providing a potential guideline for futures application of therapeutic VR in healthcare towards Health 4.0. A mixed research method was adopted for this research, which comprised the use of a bibliometric analysis (a quantitative method) to conduct a macro overview of VR-aided therapy, the identification of significant research structures and topics, and a qualitative review of the literature to reveal deeper insights. Four major research areas of VR-aided therapy were identified and investigated, i.e., post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD), anxiety and fear related disorder (A&F), diseases of the nervous system (DNS), and pain management, including related medical conditions, therapies, methods, and outcomes. This study is the first to use VOSviewer, a commonly used software tool for constructing and visualizing bibliometric networks and developed by Center for Science and Technology Studies, Leiden University, the Netherlands, to conduct bibliometric analyses on VR-aided therapy from the perspective of Web of Science core collection (WoSc), which objectively and visually shows research structures and topics, therefore offering instructive insights for health care stakeholders (particularly researchers and service providers) such as including integrating more innovative therapies, emphasizing psychological benefits, using game elements, and introducing design research. The results of this paper facilitate with achieving the vision of Health 4.0 and illustrating a two-decade (2000 to year 2020) map of pre-life of the Health Metaverse.