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. 2019 Mar 5;8(3):309.
doi: 10.3390/jcm8030309.

Exposure to a Standardized Catastrophic Scenario in Virtual Reality or a Personalized Scenario in Imagination for Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Tanya Guitard  1 , Stéphane Bouchard  2   3 , Claude Bélanger  4 , Maxine Berthiaume  5
Affiliations

Exposure to a Standardized Catastrophic Scenario in Virtual Reality or a Personalized Scenario in Imagination for Generalized Anxiety Disorder

Tanya Guitard et al. J Clin Med. .

Abstract

The cognitive behavioral treatment of generalized anxiety disorder (GAD) often involves exposing patients to a catastrophic scenario depicting their most feared worry. The aim of this study was to examine whether a standardized scenario recreated in virtual reality (VR) would elicit anxiety and negative affect and how it compared to the traditional method of imagining a personalized catastrophic scenario. A sample of 28 participants were first exposed to a neutral non-catastrophic scenario and then to a personalized scenario in imagination or a standardized virtual scenario presented in a counterbalanced order. The participants completed questionnaires before and after each immersion. The results suggest that the standardized virtual scenario induced significant anxiety. No difference was found when comparing exposure to the standardized scenario in VR and exposure to the personalized scenario in imagination. These findings were specific to anxiety and not to the broader measure of negative affect. Individual differences in susceptibility to feel present in VR was a significant predictor of increase in anxiety and negative affect. Future research could use these scenarios to conduct a randomized control trial to test the efficacy and cost/benefits of using VR in the treatment of GAD.

Keywords: Generalized Anxiety Disorder (GAD); cognitive exposure; exposure in virtual reality; personalized scenario; standardized scenario; virtual reality.

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Conflict of interest statement

Stéphane Bouchard is president and part owner of In Virtuo, a company that distributes virtual environments, and conflicts of interest are managed under UQO’s conflict of interest policy.

Figures

Figure 1
Figure 1
Illustration of the differential impact of exposure to a neutral scenario in virtual reality, a personalized scenario in imagination (IM-Exp) and a standardized scenario in virtual reality (VR-Exp) on the self-report measure of anxiety.
Figure 2
Figure 2
Illustration of the differential impact of exposure to a neutral scenario in virtual reality, a personalized scenario in imagination (IM-Exp) and a standardized scenario in virtual reality (VR-Exp) on the self-report measure of negative affect.
Figure 3
Figure 3
Scatterplots for the three predictors of state anxiety (top three) and negative affect (bottom three): immersive tendency (ITQ, left plot), positive beliefs about worry (WW-II, center plot), and intolerance of uncertainty (IUS, right plot).
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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