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The acceptability and feasibility of a novel virtual reality based social skills training game for schizophrenia: Preliminary findings.

ABSTRACT: Social impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia that presents a major barrier toward recovery. Some of the psychotic symptoms are partly ameliorated by medication but the route to recovery is hampered by social impairments. Since existing social skills interventions tend to suffer from lack of availability, high-burden and low adherence, there is a dire need for an effective, alternative strategy. The present study examined the feasibility and acceptability of Multimodal Adaptive Social Intervention in Virtual Reality (MASI-VR) for improving social functioning and clinical outcomes in schizophrenia. Out of eighteen patients with schizophrenia who enrolled, seventeen participants completed the pre-treatment assessment and 10 sessions of MASI-VR, but one patient did not complete the post-treatment assessments. Therefore, the complete training plus pre- and post-treatment assessment data are available from sixteen participants. Clinical ratings of symptom severity were obtained at pre- and post-training. Retention rates were very high and training was rated as extremely satisfactory for the majority of participants. Participants exhibited a significant reduction in overall clinical symptoms, especially negative symptoms following 10 sessions of MASI-VR. These preliminary results support the feasibility and acceptability of a novel virtual reality social skills training program for individuals with schizophrenia.

SUBMITTER: Adery LH

PROVIDER: S-EPMC6314809 | biostudies-literature | 2018 Dec

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature

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The acceptability and feasibility of a novel virtual reality based social skills training game for schizophrenia: Preliminary findings.

Adery Laura H LH Ichinose Megan M Torregrossa Lénie J LJ Wade Joshua J Nichols Heathman H Bekele Esube E Bian Dayi D Gizdic Alena A Granholm Eric E Sarkar Nilanjan N Park Sohee S

Psychiatry research 20181009

Social impairment is a core feature of schizophrenia that presents a major barrier toward recovery. Some of the psychotic symptoms are partly ameliorated by medication but the route to recovery is hampered by social impairments. Since existing social skills interventions tend to suffer from lack of availability, high-burden and low adherence, there is a dire need for an effective, alternative strategy. The present study examined the feasibility and acceptability of Multimodal Adaptive Social Int ...[more]

PMID: 30326433

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Project description:This study assessed the feasibility, implementation process and outcomes of the VReedom training; a virtual reality (VR)-based intervention designed to prepare forensic psychiatric patients for their first authorized leave. Clinical forensic mental healthcare organization Inforsa, operating at security level 3, introduced the VReedom training for forensic patients eligible for their first authorized leave, between March 1st and November 13th, 2022. Employing a retrospective observational cohort study design with patient dossier data as the primary source, the study also used participant observation, weekly evaluative questionnaires and focus group discussions as data sources. Five objectives were utilized to evaluate the feasibility: recruitment capacity and resulting sample characteristics, data collection and evaluation procedures, acceptability and suitability of the training and protocol, training management and implementation, and preliminary participant results. Despite the lack of a control group, findings align with literature suggesting VR's potential for enhancing treatment motivation and reducing stress in preparation for first authorized leave. Of 13 patients approached, 10 participated without dropouts, and no incidents occurred during training. Emotion elicitation was successful, supporting VR Exposure therapy's efficacy. Findings align with literature, emphasizing VR's value in forensic psychiatry. Establishing favorable implementation conditions was crucial, with positive reception from treatment providers. Also, the need for personalization and additional locations was identified, and the training seemed most suitable for patients with a tbs-measure. Future research with control groups is recommended to further validate the effectiveness of the VReedom training intervention, and further protocol development is necessary to make it suitable for a broader population. Current findings contribute to the refinement and expansion of evidence-based practices in the field of VR-assisted training and treatment in forensic psychiatry.

Project description:BackgroundMany researchers have been evaluating how digital media may impact the emotional and perspective taking aspects of empathy in both clinical and nonclinical settings. Despite the growing interest in using virtual reality (VR) and VR games to motivate empathy, few studies have focused on empathy for people who live with chronic pain.ObjectiveChronic pain affects, by conservative estimates, 1 in 5 people in industrialized countries. Despite this prevalence, public awareness of chronic pain was remarkably low until the recent opioid crisis; as a result, stigma remains a problem frequently faced by people who live with this condition. To address this, the VR game AS IF was developed to increase nonpatients' empathy toward the growing number of people who live with long-term chronic pain. On the basis of our prior work, we overhauled our approach, designed and built a VR prototype and evaluated it, and offered design suggestions for future research.MethodsWe introduced the design features of the VR game AS IF and described the study we devised to evaluate its effectiveness. We adopted a mixed methods approach and compared the empathy-related outcomes in both pre- and posttesting. A total of 19 participants were recruited.ResultsThe findings of this study suggest that the VR game was effective in improving implicit and explicit empathy as well as its emotional and perspective taking aspects. More specifically, for the Empathy Scale, the total pretest scores (mean 47.33, SD 4.24) and posttest scores (mean 59.22, SD 4.33) did not reach statistical significance (P=.08). However, we did find differences in the subscales. The kindness subscale showed a statistically significant increase in the posttest score (mean 15.61, SD 2.85) compared with the pretest score (mean 17.06, SD 2.65;P=.001). For the Willingness to Help Scale, a significant increase was observed from a t test analysis (P<.001) of scores before (mean 7.17, SD 2.28) and after (mean 8.33, SD 2.03) the gameplay. The effect size for this analysis was large (d=-1.063).ConclusionsThe contributions of this research are as follows: AS IF provides a promising approach for designing VR games to motivate people's empathy toward patients with chronic pain, the study evaluates the potential effectiveness of such a VR approach, and the general design suggestions devised from this study could shed light on future VR game systems.

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The acceptability and feasibility of a novel virtual reality based social skills training game for schizophrenia: Preliminary findings.

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The acceptability and feasibility of a novel virtual reality based social skills training game for schizophrenia: Preliminary findings.

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