Virtual reality in assessment and treatment of schizophrenia: a systematic review

Abstract

Objective To conduct a systematic review about the use of virtual reality (VR) for evaluation, treatment and/or rehabilitation of patients with schizophrenia, focused on: areas, fields and objectives; methodological issues; features of the VR used; viability and efficiency of this resource. Methods Searches were performed about schizophrenia and virtual reality in PsycINFO, Academic Search Complete, MEDLINE Complete, CINAHL with Full Text, Web of Science and Business Source Premier databases, using the following keywords: [“schizophrenia”] AND [“virtual reality” OR “serious game”] AND [“treatment” OR “therapy” OR “rehabilitation”]. The search was carried out between November 2013 and June 2014 without using any search limiters. Results A total of 101 papers were identified, and after the application of exclusion criteria, 33 papers remained. The studies analysed focused on the use of VR for the evaluation of cognitive, social, perceptual and sensory skills, and the vast majority were experimental studies, with virtual reality specifically created for them. All the reviewed papers point towards a reliable and safe use of VR for evaluating and treating cognitive and social deficits in patients with schizophrenia, with different results in terms of generalisation, motivation, assertiveness and task participation rate. Some problems were highlighted, such as its high cost and a constant need for software maintenance. Conclusion The studies show that using the virtual reality may streamline traditional evaluation/rehabilitation programmes, allowing to enhance the results achieved, both in the cognitive and in the social field, helping for the legitimisation of this population’s psycho-social inclusion.

Virtual reality in the psychological treatment for mental health problems: An systematic review of recent evidence

“…Their conclusion was that VR had small effects regarding compliance, cognitive functioning, social skills and acceptability of intervention (Valimaki et al, 2014). More recently two reviews have reviewed the evidence for the assessment and treatment of schizophrenia in a more comprehensive manner (Macedo et al, 2015;Veling et al, 2014) and a recent review also investigated the use of VR in autism (Grynszpan et al, 2014).…”

A paradigm description of virtual reality and its possible applications in psychiatry

“…There are three important features concerning VR: immersion, sense of presence and interaction [5]. Immersion is the sensory context of the experienced reality, providing sensual stimuli that give the impression of being inside this reality.…”

Realidad virtual y sus aplicaciones en trastornos mentales: una revisión

“…Las evaluaciones de las habilidades cognitivas, sociales, perceptuales y sensoriales realizadas por la RV muestran correlaciones positivas con los resultados obtenidos de las evaluaciones con herramientas clásicas (por ejemplo, la Prueba de clasificación de tarjetas de Wisconsin WCST y la escala de comportamiento social SBS). En los seis estudios que utilizaron RV para el entrenamiento cognitivo y habilidades sociales, hubo una mejora en los resultados del rendimiento, en comparación con lo obtenido con programas clásicos sin RV (por ejemplo, la batería para la evaluación del estado neuropsicológico RBANS) 19 .…”