Is Virtual Reality effective to motivate and raise interest in phobic children towards therapy?

Status

Active, not recruiting

Phases

Unknown

Study type

Interventional

Source

ISRCTN

Registry ID

ISRCTN87716831

Enrollment

Registered

2008-05-12

Start date

2004-09-01

Completion date

Unknown

Last updated

2015-01-13

For informational purposes only — not medical advice. Sourced from public registries and may not reflect the latest updates. Terms

Conditions

Incapacitating fear and avoidance of spiders Mental and Behavioural Disorders Phobic anxiety disorders

Interventions

Participants: A total of 31 children who met the study's criteria took part in the program. Five were males and twenty-six were females. Their ages ranged from 8 to 15 years, with a mean age of 10.16

Eligibility

Sex/Gender

All

Inclusion criteria

Inclusion criteria: 1. Had to obtain the consent of their parent or legal custody guardians 2. Had to have received a principal diagnosis of arachnophobia based on the Diagnosis of Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 4th edition (DSM-IV) criteria 3. Children (8 - 15 years), either sex

Exclusion criteria

Exclusion criteria: 1. Mentally handicapped 2. Suffering from a major physical disability, epilepsy, disorders of the vestibular system or otitis media (these criteria were fixed a priori, but none of the children had such disorders) 3. Suffering from another psychiatric or medical disorder requiring immediate or prerequisite treatment 4. Taking medication that could block the effect of anxiety (for example, benzodiazepines and serotonin reuptake inhibitors) 5. Children who were only slightly phobic; those (n = 3) who obtained a score of 9 or 10/10 on a behavioural avoidance test (BAT)

Design outcomes

Primary

Measure	Time frame
The diagnosis interview: The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV-Child Version and Parent version (ADIS-C and ADIS-P). To assess the presence of spider phobia and comorbid disorders, the participants and their parents took part in separate semi-structured interviews aimed at detecting anxiety disorders in the children. Studies conducted on these instruments suggest a high inter-rater reliability (r = 0.98 for interviews with parents and r = 0.93 for interviews with children 18 and high test-retest reliability (k = 0.76 for interviews with parents). Questionnaires and behavioural measure: The first four instruments deal with motivation, interest, and participant's perception of the therapy program. The last two measures of motivation were designed for the current study and administered beforehand to an independent sample of 31 school-aged children to ensure they understood the items. Measures of motivation and interest toward treatment: 1. "Why are you in therapy?" Questionnaire for children. This is the target measure of motivation, the main variable in this study. It assesses the type of motivation shown by patients in therapy, as defined by Deci and Ryan. To shorten the questionnaire from 24 to 17 items, we retained only the two items with the highest saturation on each subscale. The rating ranges from 1 to 5 on a Likert-type scale ranging from "Not at all" to "Absolutely". Participants had to fill out the questionnaire at pre-treatment (T1), post-phase one (T4) and post-treatment (T5). 2. The Treatment Appeal Questionnaire was composed of a single item asking to what extent the child would have preferred to receive the other form of therapy (e.g., in virtuo for those in the in vivo condition). Responses ranged from 1 to 5 on a Likert-type scale describing the degree to which the child agreed with the statement. The measure was taken at pre-treatment (T1), at the information session (T2) and during each of the sessions of the first phase of the exp	—

Measure

Time frame

The diagnosis interview: The Anxiety Disorders Interview Schedule for DSM-IV-Child Version and Parent version (ADIS-C and ADIS-P). To assess the presence of spider phobia and comorbid disorders, the participants and their parents took part in separate semi-structured interviews aimed at detecting anxiety disorders in the children. Studies conducted on these instruments suggest a high inter-rater reliability (r = 0.98 for interviews with parents and r = 0.93 for interviews with children 18 and high test-retest reliability (k = 0.76 for interviews with parents). Questionnaires and behavioural measure: The first four instruments deal with motivation, interest, and participant's perception of the therapy program. The last two measures of motivation were designed for the current study and administered beforehand to an independent sample of 31 school-aged children to ensure they understood the items. Measures of motivation and interest toward treatment: 1. "Why are you in therapy?" Questionnaire for children. This is the target measure of motivation, the main variable in this study. It assesses the type of motivation shown by patients in therapy, as defined by Deci and Ryan. To shorten the questionnaire from 24 to 17 items, we retained only the two items with the highest saturation on each subscale. The rating ranges from 1 to 5 on a Likert-type scale ranging from "Not at all" to "Absolutely". Participants had to fill out the questionnaire at pre-treatment (T1), post-phase one (T4) and post-treatment (T5). 2. The Treatment Appeal Questionnaire was composed of a single item asking to what extent the child would have preferred to receive the other form of therapy (e.g., in virtuo for those in the in vivo condition). Responses ranged from 1 to 5 on a Likert-type scale describing the degree to which the child agreed with the statement. The measure was taken at pre-treatment (T1), at the information session (T2) and during each of the sessions of the first phase of the exp

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Secondary

Measure	Time frame
Measures relating to use of the virtual reality: The following three ancillary measures were administered to describe the sample using questionnaires that are important to measure in VR studies: 1. The Immersion Tendencies Questionnaire was administered at pre-treatment (T1) in order to describe the sample and the extent to which the child could easily feel immersed in the virtual environment. It consists of 34 questions on a 7-point Likert-type scale (from 1 - never to 7 - often). 2. The 19-item Child Presence Questionnaire measured the extent of the child's feeling of being there in the virtual environment, a variable considered a prerequisite to emotionally react when immersed in a virtual environment. 3. The 11-item Cybersickness Questionnaire measured the extent to which the children were affected by side effects induced by their immersion in virtual reality (nausea, eye fatigue, dizziness, etc.) and was administered after each therapy session in virtual reality (mean of the scores collected during the first phase of the treatment, T3). Results regarding these instruments revealed that the immersive tendency and feeling of presence were adequate and little cybersickness was reported.	—

Measure

Time frame

Measures relating to use of the virtual reality: The following three ancillary measures were administered to describe the sample using questionnaires that are important to measure in VR studies: 1. The Immersion Tendencies Questionnaire was administered at pre-treatment (T1) in order to describe the sample and the extent to which the child could easily feel immersed in the virtual environment. It consists of 34 questions on a 7-point Likert-type scale (from 1 - never to 7 - often). 2. The 19-item Child Presence Questionnaire measured the extent of the child's feeling of being there in the virtual environment, a variable considered a prerequisite to emotionally react when immersed in a virtual environment. 3. The 11-item Cybersickness Questionnaire measured the extent to which the children were affected by side effects induced by their immersion in virtual reality (nausea, eye fatigue, dizziness, etc.) and was administered after each therapy session in virtual reality (mean of the scores collected during the first phase of the treatment, T3). Results regarding these instruments revealed that the immersive tendency and feeling of presence were adequate and little cybersickness was reported.

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Countries

Canada

Outcome results

None listed

Source: ISRCTN (via WHO ICTRP) · Data processed: Feb 4, 2026