NCT03001154

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Speech Anxiety Using Commercial Hardware and Software

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 50 (actual)
• Sponsor: Stockholm University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) is an efficacious treatment of fear and anxiety, but because of the high financial costs and technical complexity of the past generation of VR hardware, there has been no large-scale implementation of this promising treatment. The present study will investigate whether off-the-shelf, commercial VR hardware and software can be used as stimuli material to conduct in-session exposure therapy for speech anxiety. The study will recruit n=25+25 participants from the general public suffering from substantial speech anxiety, who will be randomized to either a waiting-list, or one-session VRET with a therapist, followed by four weeks of a progressive maintenance program encouraging in-vivo exposure. The waiting-list group will then receive an Internet-delivered VRET treatment program.

Conditions

• Social Phobia
• Anxiety
• Behavior Therapy

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Face-to-face Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy	In session, systematic, hierarchical exposure to feared stimuli with therapist.
BEHAVIORAL	Internet-administered Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy	Therapist-guided, Internet-administered Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy self-help program
OTHER	Waiting-list	Weekly assessments of public speaking

Timeline

• Start date: 2017-01-01
• Primary completion: 2017-05-01
• Completion: 2018-06-01
• First posted: 2016-12-22
• Last updated: 2019-03-07

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Sweden