While virtual reality is often thought of as a gaming platform, it can be used in a wide variety of other applications. For example, virtual reality is currently being researched in various medical and psychological applications, like in exposure therapy for claustrophobia. As it is the most common phobia, virtual reality treatments for claustrophobia could be particularly helpful. A recent study examined the use of virtual reality in the treatment of claustrophobia (Rahani et al., 2018). This article will briefly review that study.
Methods
The game in this study was guided by the following development process:
- Preproduction (reviewing prior research and selecting the tools to be used)
- Game design (designing the game together with a psychiatrist)
- Game implementation (making the game to completion)
- Game evaluation (testing the game for effectiveness and playability)
The game was developed using Unity3D, 3D Studio MAX, Maya, Adobe Photoshop, and Microsoft Visual Studio C#. The game was played using an Oculus Rift headset. Upon starting the game, participants could choose from the following options:
- Watching a video clip about claustrophobia “that introduces the fear of closed environment[s]”.
- An activity that involves approaching an elevator, entering the elevator, and stay on an elevator while it goes up ten floors. Participants could leave the elevator at each floor and enter a “relaxation room”.
- An activity that involves approaching an MRI machine, entering the MRI machine, and watching a video of the inside of an MRI machine.
The game was ultimately evaluated by 33 people, 14 patients who were afraid of closed environments and 19 volunteers who were not afraid of closed spaces. These participants evaluated the game in terms of the following aspects:
- Effectiveness for the treatment of claustrophobia, as measured by the Spielberg questionnaire, which uses 20 items to measure obvious anxiety. This item was only administered to the participants who were afraid of closed environments.
- Playability, using a newly designed “playability questionnaire” based on prior relevant articles. This item was administered to both groups of participants. The following factors were used in this questionnaire:
- Emotion
- Motivation
- Satisfaction
- Immersion
- Effectiveness
- Usability
- Learnability
Results
The following results were obtained regarding the effectiveness of the game for treating claustrophobia:
- Obvious anxiety was measured in each participant with a fear of closed spaces both before and after playing the game, and obvious anxiety was significantly lower on average after playing the game.
The following results were obtained for the game in terms of playability:
- In all seven aspects (emotion, motivation, satisfaction, immersion, effectiveness, usability, and learnability), the game scored right around 80%, indicating “good” performance according to the scale used.
Wrapping up
Exposure therapy can be an intimidating experience, and virtual reality may help alleviate this. The results of this study indicate that a newly designed game may help reduce obvious anxiety in patients with claustrophobia, and that the game is overall enjoyable to play. Accessible and enjoyable treatment methods like this may be more effective for certain patients than traditional treatment methods, so it is important to continue conducting research like this on virtual reality-based treatments for psychological disorders.
References
Rahani, V.K., Vard, A., Najafi, M. (2018). Claustrophobia Game: Design and Development of a New Virtual Reality Game for Treatment of Claustrophobia. Journal of Medical Signals and Sensors, 8(4), 231-237. doi: 10.4103/jmss.JMSS_27_18.
