NCT04467502

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Gambling Disorder

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Gambling Disorder: Randomized Controlled Trial

• Status: Not Yet Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 124 (estimated)
• Sponsor: University Hospital, Lille · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Gambling disorder (GD) is recognized as an addictive disorder in the DSM-5. Craving is a core phenomenon in addiction that can lead to relapse in problem gambling for pathological gamblers. Exposure Therapy (ET) focuses on craving in addiction treatment. ET in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is based on classical conditioning that addresses the association between contextual cues and the craving response. ET helps the patient to reduce craving when faced with cues triggering craving. ET includes in vivo exposure and imaginal exposure. The literature recommends being as close as possible to the context of addiction to facilitate the extinction of craving but in vivo ET is complicated to perform. For GD, in outpatient consultation, bringing a patient to a casino presents obstacles (e.g., time, human and financial cost, agreement with casino for therapy). The study will be to assess the effectiveness of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) in a virtual gambling environment. Various trials show that VRET is no more or less effective than classical ET in CBT but has other advantages for motivation to treatment. This research aims to compare efficacy between CBT with VRET and CBT with imaginal exposure for treatment of GD in a multicenter, randomized, controlled, non-inferiority clinical trial.

Detailed description

Main aim: Show, within patients seeking care for GD, that VRET integrated with CBT is non-inferior to imaginal ET integrated with CBT on GD symptom reduction at the end of 12 treatment sessions. Secondary objectives: 1. Show that VRET integrated with CBT is non-inferior to imaginal ET integrated with CBT on GD symptom reduction during the first 12 months post-treatment. 2. Compare the effect of the two therapeutic strategies on GD symptoms (measured by complementary assessments to that used in the main aim), at the end of treatment and during the first 12 months post-treatment. 3. Show the efficacy of VRET integrated with CBT compared to imaginal ET integrated with CBT on gambling behavior, craving, and gambling-related cognitions at the end of treatment and during the first 12 months post-treatment. 4. Show the efficacy of VRET integrated with CBT compared to imaginal ET integrated with CBT on the evolution of anxiety and depressive symptoms at the end of treatment and during the first 12 months post-treatment. 5. Compare the quality of the two therapeutic strategies at the end of treatment.

Conditions

• Gambling Disorder

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	cognitive-behavioral therapy for gambling disorder	6 sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy for gambling disorder
OTHER	imaginal exposure therapy focus on gambling cues	6 sessions of imaginal exposure therapy focus on gambling cues
OTHER	virtual reality exposure therapy focus on gambling cues	6 sessions of virtual reality exposure therapy focus on gambling cues

Timeline

• Start date: 2024-01-01
• Primary completion: 2026-07-01
• Completion: 2026-07-01
• First posted: 2020-07-13
• Last updated: 2024-01-26

Locations

10 sites across 1 country: France