NCT04579354

Virtual Reality (VR) Tour to Reduce Preoperative Anxiety Before Anaesthesia

Virtual Reality (VR) Tour to Reduce Preoperative Anxiety Before Anaesthesia in an Operating Setting: A Randomized Clinical Trial

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 84 (actual)
• Sponsor: RWTH Aachen University · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 100 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Anxiety and apprehension are common among patients prior to surgery. This anxiety can lead to additional discomfort, increased pain sensation and increased stress symptoms. Virtual exposure has proven to be successful in exposure therapy for the treatment of the narrowest patients. Patients are not confronted with the real stimuli or situations that trigger the branches, but with virtual representations of them. Virtual reality (VR) makes it possible to create scenarios that would not be possible in reality because of the organisational, time or financial expenditure involved.The effectiveness of virtual stimulus exposure is well documented, especially in the case of object or situation-related fears in the context of specific phobias. It is therefore obvious that virtual stimulus exposure could also be suitable for minimising operation-associated fears.The research project described is designed to investigate the effect of virtual stimulus exposure on perioperative anxiety. For this purpose, a virtual tour of the operating setting has been created, which enables patients to explore the surroundings in detail by means of VR glasses.

Detailed description

Anxiety and apprehension are common among patients prior to surgery. This anxiety can lead to additional discomfort, increased pain sensation and increased stress symptoms. Virtual exposure has proven to be successful in exposure therapy for the treatment of the narrowest patients. Patients are not confronted with the real stimuli or situations that trigger the branches, but with virtual representations of them. Virtual reality (VR) makes it possible to create scenarios that would not be possible in reality because of the organisational, time or financial expenditure involved.The effectiveness of virtual stimulus exposure is well documented, especially in the case of object or situation-related fears in the context of specific phobias. It is therefore obvious that virtual stimulus exposure could also be suitable for minimising operation-associated fears.The research project described is designed to investigate the effect of virtual stimulus exposure on perioperative anxiety. For this purpose, a virtual tour of the operating setting has been created, which enables patients to explore the surroundings in detail by means of VR glasses.

Conditions

• Anaesthesia
• Anxiety
• Postoperative Pain

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	virtual reality tour	Patients will be guided via VR on their way through the hospital to the operating theater

Timeline

• Start date: 2020-09-07
• Primary completion: 2020-10-30
• Completion: 2021-01-01
• First posted: 2020-10-08
• Last updated: 2021-03-15

Locations

1 site across 1 country: Germany