Virtual Reality Therapy in Social Anxiety Disorder.

Content Provider	Europe PMC
Author	Emmelkamp, Paul M. G. Meyerbröker, Katharina Morina, Nexhmedin
Abstract	Purpose of ReviewThis review provides an overview of current methods and important aspects to consider when applying virtual worlds in the treatment of social anxiety disorder (SAD).Recent FindingsDifferent aspects such as dialogs between avatars and patients have been investigated as well as virtual audiences, emotional facial expression, and verbal interaction with avatars. Results of these studies are promising. Few randomized controlled trials (RCTs) have investigated the efficacy of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) in SAD. Unfortunately, most RCTs into the efficacy of VRET in comparison with exposure in vivo in SAD have been conducted with a combination of cognitive interventions and VRET. No differences between these conditions were found, but the pure effect of VRET as a stand-alone treatment has only been investigated in one RCT, wherein VRET was not superior to exposure in vivo.SummaryCurrent research into different facets of SAD and VRET has produced promising results with respect to technological aspects. No differences in efficacy between cognitive behavior therapy and VRET were found, but there is a clear need for studies investigating the efficacy of VRET as a stand-alone treatment and the therapeutic processes involved before this therapy can be disseminated in routine clinical practice.
Related Links	https://europepmc.org/backend/ptpmcrender.fcgi?accid=PMC7220867&blobtype=pdf
ISSN	15233812
Journal	Current Psychiatry Reports [Curr Psychiatry Rep]
Volume Number	22
DOI	10.1007/s11920-020-01156-1
PubMed Central reference number	PMC7220867
Issue Number	7
PubMed reference number	32405657
e-ISSN	15351645
Language	English
Publisher	Springer US
Publisher Date	2020-05-13
Publisher Place	New York
Access Restriction	Open
Rights License	Open Access This article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/. © The Author(s) 2020
Subject Keyword	Virtual reality exposure therapy Social anxiety disorder Speech anxiety Assessment Virtual social worlds
Content Type	Text
Resource Type	Article
Subject	Psychiatry and Mental Health