Aasen Jan, Nilsson Fredrik, Sørensen Torgeir, Leonhardt Marja
Research Centre for Substance Use Disorders and Mental Health Disorders (ROP-Forsk), Innlandet Hospital Trust, Erik Werenskiolds veg 3, Hamar, Norway, 47 99428096.
RIO - Rusmisbrukerenes interesseorganisasjon, Oslo, Norway.
JMIR Form Res. 2025 Aug 20;9:e57643. doi: 10.2196/57643.
Concurrent mental health and substance use disorders (MHD/SUD) are one of the most prominent public health problems as of today, and the worldwide prevalence of MHD/SUD is currently increasing. Modern virtual reality technology may provide easy, unlimited, and safe access to social experiences and interactions that hold the potential to promote individuals' new learning for the benefit of their social participation and recovery. However, the clinical adoption of virtual reality-based interventions (VRIs) is still in its infancy. Human limitations in skills transfer from virtual to actual reality are a major challenge in designing efficient VRIs. Key working mechanisms of the interactive, digital social environments in virtual realities have yet to be identified. There is a lack of knowledge on how immersive learning experiences may be designed and structured to promote sustained real-life benefits for people with mental health and substance use disorders.
The main aims of this paper were to explain the factors affecting the outcomes of learning in multisensory virtual reality environments and to examine how they affect our particular target group. The overall purpose of this study was to understand how learning experiences in VRIs may be designed and orchestrated to promote sustained real-life benefits of VRIs in people with MHD/SUD.
Eight individual in-depth interviews with adults in recovery from mental health and substance use disorders were conducted in a medium-sized municipality in eastern Norway in fall 2022. The interviews were analyzed using template analysis, a form of codebook thematic analysis, in a process involving peer researcher collaboration.
This study suggests that the human capacity to achieve sustained learning outcomes from multisensory immersive learning experiences was limited in general. This study also indicates that people with mental health and substance use disorders struggle with attention deficit, concentration, and memory to an extent that it affects their daily functioning.
Altogether, the theoretical framework and empirical findings provide added information on how we may develop learning experience designs in VRIs that accommodate human perceptual processes. VRI scenarios that may be repeated and structured according to individual learning prerequisites may enable the restructuring of maladaptive social schema. This may possibly promote the storage of new, repaired schemas in the user's long-term memory. It is therefore suggested that short, focused VRI scenarios, orchestrated in a sequenced and deliberately structured learning workflow, may promote sustained real-life benefits from VRIs in people with mental health and substance use disorders.
心理健康与物质使用障碍（MHD/SUD）并存是当今最突出的公共卫生问题之一，且全球范围内MHD/SUD的患病率目前正在上升。现代虚拟现实技术可能提供轻松、无限制且安全的社交体验和互动机会，这些体验和互动有潜力促进个人的新学习，以利于他们的社交参与和康复。然而，基于虚拟现实的干预措施（VRIs）在临床中的应用仍处于起步阶段。人类从虚拟现实向现实生活转移技能的局限性是设计高效VRIs的一大挑战。虚拟现实中交互式数字社交环境的关键工作机制尚未明确。对于如何设计和构建沉浸式学习体验以促进心理健康与物质使用障碍患者获得持续的现实生活益处，目前还缺乏相关知识。
本文的主要目的是解释多感官虚拟现实环境中影响学习成果的因素，并研究这些因素如何影响我们特定的目标群体。本研究的总体目的是了解如何设计和安排VRIs中的学习体验，以促进心理健康与物质使用障碍患者从VRIs中获得持续的现实生活益处。
2022年秋季，在挪威东部的一个中等规模城市，对8名从心理健康与物质使用障碍中康复的成年人进行了个人深度访谈。采用模板分析（一种编码本主题分析形式）对访谈进行分析，该过程涉及同行研究人员的合作。
本研究表明，一般来说，人类从多感官沉浸式学习体验中实现持续学习成果的能力是有限的。本研究还表明, 心理健康与物质使用障碍患者在注意力缺陷、专注力和记忆力方面存在困难，这在一定程度上影响了他们的日常功能。
总的来说，理论框架和实证研究结果为我们如何开发适应人类感知过程的VRIs学习体验设计提供了更多信息。可以根据个人学习前提条件重复和构建的VRIs场景可能会使适应不良的社会图式得以重构。这可能会促进新的、修复后的图式存储在用户的长期记忆中。因此，建议在有序且精心构建的学习工作流程中安排简短、有针对性的VRIs场景，这可能会促进心理健康与物质使用障碍患者从VRIs中获得持续的现实生活益处。
