Design and validation of virtual environments for the treatment of cleaning obsessive-compulsive disorder

García-Batista, Zoilo Emilio; Guerra-Peña, Kiero; Alsina-Jurnet, Ivan; Cano-Vindel, Antonio; Álvarez-Hernández, Adriana; Cantisano-Guzmán, Luisa Marilia; Bordas-Puras, Marlia; Moretti, Luciana Sofía; Medrano, Leonardo Adrián

doi:10.1016/j.heliyon.2022.e12487

Cited by 5 publications

(2 citation statements)

References 36 publications

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“…These results add to the body of the literature on the effectivity of VR use for the treatment of anxiety disorders (Diemer et al, 2014;Freeman et al, 2017;Gorini and Riva, 2008;Maples-Keller et al, 2017;Wiederhold and Wiederhold, 2005) suggesting that VR can be also used to reduce state anxiety in a healthy population. This finding is consistent with the previous studies on anxiety reduction in students by means of VR (Camara and Hicks, 2020;García-Batista et al, 2022;Harris, Kemmerling and North, 2002).…”

Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Virtual Reality as Anxiety Management Tool

Berberyan,

Alsina-Jurnet

2023

IJCRSEE

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Virtual Reality technologies have been established as an effective tool for the treatment of a variety of mental health disorders. Despite those positive results, it remains unclear whether these findings can generalize to the healthy population. In the current study, we assessed to what degree a virtual scenario consisting of a tropical beach can be successfully applied for the reduction of state anxiety and negative mood in healthy individuals. The study was performed on 50 volunteers aged 18 to 45 that were individually exposed to virtual reality. Before and after the virtual reality session, the emotional state of the participants was measured through questionnaires. Using linear mixed effect models, we obtained evidence for the effectivity of a single virtual reality session for negative state reduction, namely, we observed a decrease in state anxiety and negative mood. Additionally, a positive mood of participants increased after the session, however, no statistical evidence was obtained. The results confirm our hypothesis that state anxiety and negative mood can be decreased using a low-cost virtual reality device. Based on our findings, we suggest that virtual scenarios can improve the emotional well-being and the quality of life of the general population.

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Section: Discussionsupporting

confidence: 93%

Virtual Reality as Anxiety Management Tool

Berberyan,

Alsina-Jurnet

2023

IJCRSEE

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“…Aligned with our perspective, other studies discussed the limitation of focusing solely on anxiety symptoms, without considering the role of disgust. Mason and Richardson [54] and, more recently, Garcia-Batista [55], underscore the significant contribution of disgust to the development of the manifestation of contamination and washing symptoms in C-OCD. This emotion is often more resistant to treatment than fear, posing challenges to traditional ET.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 98%

Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Treating Fear of Contamination Disorders: A Systematic Review of Healthy and Clinical Populations

Ferraioli,

Culicetto,

Cecchetti

et al. 2024

Brain Sciences

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Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET), particularly immersive Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (iVRET), has gained attraction as an innovative approach in exposure therapy (ET), notably for some anxiety disorders with a fear of contamination component, such as spider phobia (SP) and obsessive–compulsive disorder (OCD). This systematic work investigates iVRET’s effectiveness in modulating disgust emotion—a shared aberrant feature across these disorders. Recent reviews have evaluated VRET’s efficacy against in vivo ET. However, emerging evidence also highlights iVRET’s potential in diminishing atypical disgust and related avoidance behaviors, expanding beyond traditional fear-focused outcomes. Our systematic synthesis, adhering to PRISMA guidelines, aims to fill this gap by assessing iVRET’s efficacy in regulating disgust emotion within both clinical and at-risk populations, identified through standardized questionnaires and subjective disgust ratings. This research analyzes data from eight studies on clinical populations and five on healthy populations, offering an insight into iVRET’s potential to mitigate the aberrant disgust response, a common transdiagnostic feature in varied psychopathologies. The findings support iVRET’s clinical relevance in disgust management, providing evidence for a broader therapeutic application of iVRET and pointing out the need for more focused and complete investigations in this emergent field.

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