Virtual reality in social skills training for people with schizophrenia.

Abstract

Schizophrenia is characterized by disruptions in thought processes, perceptions, emotional responsiveness, and social interactions. The social skill deficits often predate the onset of schizophrenia, are present at the first episode, are stable over time in the absence of psychosocial treatment, and are predictors of relapse and rehospitalization. Social skills training is an efficacious intervention specially to reduce negative symptoms and to improve social functioning for people living with schizophrenia. The use of virtual reality (VR) has been proposed as a possible strategy to overcome these conventional social skills training programs' limitations. The purpose of this scoping review was to design a social skills training program for people with schizophrenia using VR. The inclusion criteria were English language, published between 2010 and 2020, adult participants diagnosed with schizophrenia, and using VR for training social skills. Studies in which the participants had another mental illness or psychopathological instability and studies with interventions without using VR and in which social skills are not measured were excluded. VR seems to be effective for training social skills in people with schizophrenia. VR can add many advantages to the treatment of schizophrenia, appearing to be effective for training social skills. In future studies it would be important to confirm that VR can effectively complement traditional treatments.What is the significance of this article for the general public?The present study suggests that virtual reality offers a very promising alternative to traditional interventions for social skills training for people with schizophrenia. It is important to identify which characteristics could make this approach more engaging and with more durable and generalizable results.

Recent advances in virtual reality and psychology: Introduction to the special issue.

“…Next, Oliveira et al (2021) review five articles on the effectiveness of VR-based social skills training (SST) in individuals with schizophrenia. Their review demonstrates that despite variability in the efficacy and methodologies used across the five studies, there is preliminary evidence for improvements in social functioning, verbal communication skills, and nonverbal communication in VR-based SST in those with schizophrenia.…”