(1) Background: Virtual Reality (VR) is a fully immersive computer simulated experience consisting of a three-dimensional interactive virtual environment, through a head-mounted display (HMD) and controller. The use of virtual reality has recently been proposed for the treatment of various psychiatric conditions, including the spectrum of schizophrenia. Our review aims to investigate the current available evidence regarding the use of immersive virtual reality in the treatment of psychotic symptoms. (2) Methods: From April 2019 to June 2020, we conducted a systematic review aimed at identifying therapeutic applications in immersive virtual reality for the spectrum of schizophrenia, searching for relevant studies on Web of Science, EMBASE, PsycINFO and CINHAL. (3) Results: We identified a total of 2601 unique records. Of these, 64 full-text articles were assessed for eligibility, and six out of these met the inclusion criteria and were included in the final systematic review. (4) Conclusions: The available data on immersive virtual reality are currently limited due to the few studies carried out on the topic; however, it has demonstrated its effectiveness and versatility in successfully treating various psychotic symptoms including delusions, hallucinations, or cognitive and social skills. Existing literature agrees on safe, tolerable, and long-term persistence of the therapeutic effects obtained by immersive VR. No serious side effects have been reported. In some specific cases, VR therapy was found to be very effective compared to usual treatment, allowing effective drug free interventions, and therefore without side effects for patients, even in those resistant to normal drug therapies.

BackgroundThe incidence of paediatric cancers has increased in recent years; however, with advances in the treatment of paediatric cancer, almost 80% of children and adolescents who receive a diagnosis of cancer become long-term survivors. Given the high stress levels associated with cancer, it becomes important to ascertain the risk and likelihood of psychiatric disorders in adult paediatric cancer survivors.AimsThis study aims to investigate the relationship between defence styles and predisposition to psychiatric diseases in adults with a history of paediatric cancer.MethodsWe performed an explorative study on a sample of 66 clinically healed adults with a history of paediatric cancer (survivors) during follow-up visits at the University Hospital ‘Policlinico G Rodolico’ of Catania (Italy) and 98 healthy controls among medicine students. We administered the Defence Mechanism Inventory (DMI) to assess defence styles. The Symptom Checklist-90-Revised (SCL-90-R) and the Davidson Trauma Scale (DTS) were administered to assess psychopathological indices. We conducted comprehensive statistical analysis based on correlation analysis and mediation analysis to investigate the relationship between defence styles and psychopathological outcomes in survivors compared with controls.ResultsThe survivors obtained statistically significant lower values in TAO, PRO and TAS defence styles and a higher value in REV. Both groups showed non-pathlogical mean scores in DTS and SCL-90-R (with an exception of the obsessive-compulsive subscale), with lower mean values among survivors. The results of mediation analysis showed that TAS had mediation effects on interpersonal sensitivity, anxiety, PSDI, GSI and avoidance, while TAO had mediation effects on DTS total score and intrusivity. Thus, for these psychopathological indices, the effect of the oncological pathology was indirect and mediated by TAO or TAS. Our analysis exlcluded mediation effects between the remaining variables and defence styles.ConclusionIntegrating data from mediation and correlation analysis, we found how the decreasing of TAS utilization in survivors as the consequence of cancer history, has decreased interpersonal sensitivity, anxiety and GSI score in these subjects compared with controls. Similary, the decrease of TAO utilization played a role in lower values of DTS total score and intrusivity subscale. Unexpectedly, our analysis excluded relationships between cancer history, other defence styles and psycopathological scores as we initially assumed.

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