VR-READY
Research type
Research Study
Full title
Virtual Reality to Aid Recovery Post-ICU. How can immersive virtual reality be used to facilitate recovery and rehabilitation of patients following a stay in intensive care?
IRAS ID
323989
Contact name
Ceri Lynch
Contact email
Sponsor organisation
Cwm Taf Morgannwg University Health Board
ISRCTN Number
ISRCTN 88854487
Duration of Study in the UK
1 years, 11 months, 31 days
Research summary
Research Summary:
Intensive care (ICU) patients often experience ongoing health problems after returning home. Post Intensive Care Syndrome (PICS) can include problems with memory, thinking, physical impairments and reduced psychological wellbeing. There is currently no standard post-ICU care to support patients' recovery, made worse by a lack of staff and resources. A recent review suggested home-based and virtual care plans could allow many more people with PICS to access rehabilitation support.
Immersive virtual reality (VR) has been shown to be useful in helping relaxation and in combating pain and anxiety. This study aims to develop a VR program (intervention) for patients with PICS that can be accessed at home with an easy-to-use headset.We propose a three-stage program of research. First, we will run a series of focus groups with ICU survivors, their family members and healthcare professionals. In these we will explore the patient journey to identify the critical parts of recovery. We will also determine what is important to measure (outcomes) when assessing whether a home-based intervention work and how best to design a study to test a VR intervention at home.
The second stage will use data from the focus groups to alter an existing VR set-up (DR.VR) to create a VR program to specifically support the recovery of ICU patients.
Lastly, in the third phase, we will test the adapted VR intervention in a small group of patients, using a design informed from the focus groups, to see if using a home-based VR intervention is possible and if people are happy to use it. We will use interviews to explore how acceptable participants find the intervention and outcomes selected. The data will be analysed qualitatively to provide an in-depth understanding of the intervention and outcomes and can be used to inform the design of larger studies in the future.
Lay Summary of Results -
Severe illness requiring admission to an intensive care unit (ICU) is very stressful and many people have long-term problems with their physical and mental health. Ideally, there should be services in place to help patients recover in a way that suits each person best but these are usually not available in the NHS. Virtual reality (VR) is used in other areas of healthcare and can help with physical and psychological problems. We wanted to see if we could develop a way of using VR to give psychological support and help patients recover from critical illness. We used focus groups with survivors of critical illness, their families and healthcare staff to understand the challenges faced during recovery. They told us that being moved from ICU to a general ward is very stressful and people feel helpless, frightened and frustrated. Working with these groups, we co-developed a VR intervention (VR READY) and agreed a plan to test it as a tool to help with some of the difficult experiences faced by ICU patients. Patients leaving ICU were asked to use VR READY for 5 minutes a day for two weeks. We measured how they felt before and after and then asked people what they thought about VR READY. From the trial we found that:
• People were able to and happy to join the study but they found it difficult to use VR READY every day because they felt too unwell or tired.
• Patients enjoyed using VR READY and said it helped with their breathing, helped them feel calmer and gave a sense of ‘escaping’ from the hospital.
• They found the VR was comfortable and easy to use.
• Measures of anxiety, depression, sleep and quality of life were slightly better for most patients that completed the trial after the 14 days.
• Running the same trial on a bigger scale to see if VR READY can benefit ICU patients in their recovery journey is not possible.
• VR may still help these patients, but we think we would need change the trial to test this.
• This would include introducing the VR later in the recovery journey (for example after patients have left hospital) and providing additional psychological support.
• VR has not been tested before in patients recovering from critical illness. We have shown it is safe and enjoyable but we need to do more research to prove if it helps.REC name
North East - York Research Ethics Committee
REC reference
23/NE/0113
Date of REC Opinion
22 Jun 2023
REC opinion
Further Information Favourable Opinion