NCT05576259

oVRcome - Self Guided Virtual Reality for Social Anxiety Disorder

oVRcome - Self Guided Virtual Reality for Social Anxiety Disorder. A Randomised Controlled Trial.

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 100 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Otago · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 18 Years – 64 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

Social anxiety is characterised by excessive fear of being negatively judged, embarrassed or humiliated during social interactions and is common with a lifetime prevalence of 12.1%. Cognitive behavioural therapy is the first line of treatment, but people may not seek treatment due to a number of factors including the discomfort experienced in seeking help, inconvenience, and the experience of psychotherapy itself. With Virtual Reality (VR), users can have increased control in how gradually they expose themselves to social situations. In studies of VR in people with specific phobias, 76% of people prefer VR exposure to in vivo exposure. There is emerging evidence for the use of VR in social phobia. oVRcome, is a self-help VRET for social anxiety symptoms and specific phobias, that is delivered through a smartphone application (app) in combination with a low cost headset that holds the smartphone and uses 360º video. This study will evaluate the effectiveness of the oVRcome social anxiety program for social anxiety symptoms. We hypothesize that oVRcome will reduce social anxiety symptom severity over a 6-week treatment period compared to waiting-list control

Conditions

• Social Anxiety

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
OTHER	oVRcome phone app with headset	The intervention oVRcome is self-help VRET for social anxiety, that is delivered through a smartphone application (app) in combination with headset that holds the smartphone and uses 360º video. oVRcome includes 6 modules of psychoeducation, relaxation, mindfulness, cognitive techniques, exposure through VR, and a relapse prevention module which are aimed to be completed weekly.

Timeline

• Start date: 2022-10-08
• Primary completion: 2023-07-01
• Completion: 2023-11-01
• First posted: 2022-10-12
• Last updated: 2025-04-09

Locations

1 site across 1 country: New Zealand