NCT03744845

The Use of Virtual Reality to Reduce Anxiety and Pain in Perioperative Settings

• Status: Unknown
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 56 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University of California, San Francisco · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 75 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Accepted

Summary

We will investigate whether the use of Virtual Reality (VR) preoperatively and intraoperatively can help treat pain and anxiety, as measured by patient feedback, vital signs trends, and the amounts of anesthetics, pain medications and anxiolytics used during surgical procedures. The VR intervention will be studied during short hand surgeries normally performed using local anesthesia and sedation.

Detailed description

Virtual Reality (VR) is a powerful and inexpensive technology that has been effectively used in healthcare settings to treat anxiety and pain, with minimal side effects. In the last two decades, opioid abuse and deaths related to opioids have increased, and opioid naive patients are at increased risk of opioid abuse when opioids are used during their surgical procedures. In addition, anesthetics, anxiolytics and analgesics, namely opioids, have a myriad of side effects that worsen patient experience, and lead to complications and increased costs. There are limited studies on the use of VR in the perioperative setting. Our study is a randomized controlled trial to investigate the use of VR to treat anxiety and pain in perioperative settings. We will recruit 56 patients, 28 in the control group and 28 in the VR group, undergoing short (\<2 hrs) hand or upper extremity surgeries under local anesthesia and monitored anesthesia care (MAC). The control group will receive standard anesthetic management and the VR group will be exposed to VR in the preoperative setting and during the surgical procedure, using the clinically validated AppliedVR software. The data collected will included satisfaction questionnaires and pain scores for anxiety/pain pre- and post- procedure, vital signs trends to assess sympathetic response during surgery, and amount of anesthetics used. We hypothesize that the VR group will show decreased anxiety and pain, increased satisfaction, and decreased use of anesthetics during the procedure.

Conditions

• Perioperative Pain
• Perioperative Anxiety

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	Virtual Reality Distraction	This RCT will utilize an Oculus Go VR headset that delivers VR images and sound. Users will wear the VR headset. A research coordinator will familiarize patients with hardware before use. The VR will be used preoperatively and intraoperatively to distracts patients, and aid with the treatment of pain and anxiety.

Timeline

• Start date: 2018-12-10
• Primary completion: 2023-06-30
• Completion: 2023-06-30
• First posted: 2018-11-16
• Last updated: 2022-07-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States