Virtual Reality to Reduce Pre-procedure Anxiety Prior ECT

Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly being used in healthcare, in particular as a form of exposure therapy for patients with psychiatric disorders. It immerses patients into hospital-based procedures. We and others showed that VR prep reduces anxiety levels for elective surgical patients (manuscript submitted). However, the efficacy of VR in reducing peri-procedural anxiety in vulnerable psychiatric populations has not been assessed. This will be the first RCT utilizing VR to reduce patient anxiety before ECT through education. If VR education reduces anxiety in this vulnerable population (as proof of concept), it could increase ECT success by decreasing anesthetic requirements. Using VR technology, our study will provide patients and their families with a balanced and in-depth look at ECT safety and efficacy, and its recent advances in management of psychiatric disorders.

Primary objectives of this study are to assess whether creating a VR-ECT-360 video that immerses and educates patients and their families in the ECT experience 1) enhances factual knowledge and reduces stigmatizing attitudes toward ECT, and 2) reduces pre-procedure anxiety as compared to traditional 2D video. The secondary objective is to investigate the ease of use of VR technology in a vulnerable psychiatric patient population. Given the high rate of treatment refusals in this population, we hypothesize that implementation of our approach will reduce anxiety through patient education thereby decreasing chances for treatment refusal and drop-out rates. We suggest that use of VR will be a clinically relevant approach in such a vulnerable population (as proof of concept) and could increase ECT success by decreasing anesthetic requirements (anesthetics suppress desired seizure activity).

Inclusion criteria

• Age ≥18
• First time undergoing ECT within the last year
• Outpatient/inpatient recommended for ECT
• Within 2-4 days of ECT procedure or no ECT within the past year
• Referred by psychiatrist
• Able to understand English
• Able to watch and respond to questions

Exclusion criteria

• Lack of patient consent or capacity to give consent
• Visual and hearing impairments precluding the ability to watch or listen to video
• History of significant motion sickness (i.e. occur during exposure to physical, visual and virtual motion, cybersickness verbally declared by patient)