Virtual reality assisted therapy for social difficulties in psychosis
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Virtual reality assisted therapy for social difficulties: a feasibility study in an early intervention for psychosis service
IRAS ID
255964
Contact name
Lucia Valmaggia
Contact email
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 7 months, 30 days
Research summary
The proposed study plans to use Virtual Reality assisted Therapy (VRT) for the treatment of social difficulties, in people who are experiencing psychosis and are in an NHS service. Psychosis is a mental health disorder where people have unusual experiences, such as hearing voices or seeing things that other people do not (hallucinations). People experiencing psychosis can become paranoid (e.g. ‘an organisation wants to cause harm to me’) or hold beliefs that others do not share (e.g. ‘I have special powers’), known as delusions. Psychosis affects people in different ways. Individuals might experience it once, have short episodes throughout their life, or live with it most of the time. Experiencing psychosis can make social situations very stressful and distressing. A key component of psychological therapy for psychosis is to help people to overcome their distress in social situations and make them feel less anxious. VR presents a unique opportunity to bring real-life-type social situations into a therapy session. VRT offers service-users with psychosis a ‘safe space’ to practice strategies and techniques to help them work towards improving their social functioning, build new ways of coping with stress and assist them in their recovery.
This study will incorporate VR technology into an existing 16 week evidence-based psychological therapy package, with the aim of assessing its feasibility. The results of this study will inform future research and practice, by helping us to assess if service-users find the new VRT effective in reducing their symptoms and distress, and improving their social functioning. Crucially it will also assess how acceptable and feasible the clinical protocol is for use in an NHS service.
REC name
London - Dulwich Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
19/LO/0890
Date of REC Opinion
15 Jul 2019
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion