Department of Social Studies, University of Stavanger, 4021 Stavanger, Norway.
Department of Psychology, NTNU-Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway.
Int J Environ Res Public Health. 2022 Mar 29;19(7):4071. doi: 10.3390/ijerph19074071.
Virtual reality (VR) is a developing technology that has recently attracted the attention of healthcare practitioners. Recently, VR systems have been used to treat pain symptoms. The present study aims to evaluate the VR effectiveness on chronic pain management. A systematic literature search was performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Keywords were used to discover the potentially eligible studies. The primary focus of the present investigation was to evaluate the possible effect of VR-assisted treatments on chronic pain, especially in the commonly occurring low back and neck pain. Nine studies reporting randomized controlled trials were included in the present study. VR-mediated interventions demonstrated significant improvement for pain symptoms in patients experiencing chronic pain. In addition, VR-mediated therapy decreased pain intensity and disability in the case of chronic neck pain compared to control conditions. However, the VR interventions showed a statistically non-significant improvement in chronic low back pain when experimental groups were compared with controls. VR therapy positive effect on chronic pain did not differ from the one reported for other types of interventions for pain management, as physical exercise and laser therapy. Taken together, these findings showed that currently available lines of evidence on the effect of VR-mediated therapy in chronic pain management, despite pointing towards possible therapeutical benefits of the VR-based intervention, are overall inconclusive and that more research on VR-assisted therapy for chronic pain is needed.
虚拟现实（VR）是一种新兴技术，最近引起了医疗保健从业者的关注。最近，VR 系统已被用于治疗疼痛症状。本研究旨在评估 VR 在慢性疼痛管理中的有效性。按照系统评价和荟萃分析的首选报告项目（PRISMA）指南进行了系统文献检索。使用关键词来发现可能符合条件的研究。本研究的主要重点是评估 VR 辅助治疗对慢性疼痛的可能影响，特别是在常见的慢性下腰痛和颈痛中。本研究纳入了 9 项报告随机对照试验的研究。VR 介导的干预措施显示，在患有慢性疼痛的患者中，疼痛症状有显著改善。此外，与对照条件相比，VR 介导的治疗可降低慢性颈痛患者的疼痛强度和残疾。然而，与对照组相比，慢性下腰痛实验组的 VR 干预在统计学上无显著改善。与物理治疗和激光治疗等其他类型的疼痛管理干预相比，VR 疗法对慢性疼痛的积极影响并无差异。综上所述，这些发现表明，目前关于 VR 介导治疗在慢性疼痛管理中的效果的证据，尽管指向 VR 干预的可能治疗益处，但总体上尚无定论，需要对慢性疼痛的 VR 辅助治疗进行更多研究。
