Department of Human Sciences for Education, University of Milano Bicocca, Riccardo Massa", Milan, Italy.
Foundation IRCCS, Neurological Institute Carlo Besta, Milan, Italy.
Trials. 2022 Jun 2;23(1):451. doi: 10.1186/s13063-022-06337-2.
Healthcare workers represent one of the most affected categories by the adverse effects of the COVID-19 pandemic on mental health. Excessive stress and anxiety are critical factors that could compromise work performance. Besides, high levels of stress and anxiety may have long-term physical and psychological consequences. Recent studies investigated virtual reality to reduce stress and anxiety among healthcare workers during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, the proposed virtual reality interventions have important limitations related to their location (i.e., research lab and hospitals) and content (i.e., virtual experiences only for relaxation). Within this context, this randomized controlled trial aims to investigate the efficacy and acceptability of a brief home-based virtual reality training for managing stress and anxiety during the COVID-19 crisis in a sample of Italian healthcare workers.
The study is a randomized controlled trial. It includes two groups of 30 individuals recruited from healthcare workers: (1) the experimental group and (2) the control group. Participants in the experimental group will receive a training consisting of three home sessions performed in a week. In each session, participants will try through an immersive virtual reality standalone system (i.e., Oculus Quest 2) a virtual psychoeducation experience on stress and anxiety (i.e., MIND-VR). Subsequently, they will try the virtual relaxation content (i.e., The Secret Garden). The control group will receive no training and will be reassessed one week and one month after the initial evaluation.
If the proposed brief home-based virtual reality training will result helpful and easy to use, it could become an empirically assessed viable option for protecting healthcare workers' mental health both during the COVID-19 pandemic and once it will be over. Furthermore, the intervention might be easily adapted for other categories of people who need support in managing stress and anxiety.
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04611399 .
医护人员是受 COVID-19 大流行对心理健康的负面影响影响最严重的人群之一。过度的压力和焦虑是可能影响工作表现的关键因素。此外，高水平的压力和焦虑可能会产生长期的身心后果。最近的研究调查了虚拟现实技术在 COVID-19 大流行期间减轻医护人员压力和焦虑的作用。然而，所提出的虚拟现实干预措施存在与其位置（即研究实验室和医院）和内容（即仅用于放松的虚拟体验）相关的重要限制。在这种情况下，本随机对照试验旨在调查一项针对意大利医护人员的简短基于家庭的虚拟现实培训对管理 COVID-19 危机期间压力和焦虑的疗效和可接受性。
该研究是一项随机对照试验。它包括从医护人员中招募的两组 30 人：（1）实验组和（2）对照组。实验组的参与者将接受一项培训，包括一周内进行三次家庭课程。在每次课程中，参与者将通过一个沉浸式虚拟现实独立系统（即 Oculus Quest 2）尝试一个关于压力和焦虑的虚拟心理教育体验（即 MIND-VR）。随后，他们将尝试虚拟放松内容（即秘密花园）。对照组将不接受培训，并在初次评估后一周和一个月进行重新评估。
如果所提出的简短基于家庭的虚拟现实培训是有帮助且易于使用的，那么它可能成为一种经过实证评估的可行选择，可用于保护医护人员在 COVID-19 大流行期间和之后的心理健康。此外，该干预措施可以很容易地适用于其他需要支持来管理压力和焦虑的人群。
ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04611399。
