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Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Gambling Disorder

NCT04467502 · Status: RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 124

Last updated 2026-05-14

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Gambling disorder (GD) is recognized as an addictive disorder in the DSM-5. Craving is a core phenomenon in addiction that can lead to relapse in problem gambling for pathological gamblers. Exposure Therapy (ET) focuses on craving in addiction treatment. ET in Cognitive-Behavioral Therapy (CBT) is based on classical conditioning that addresses the association between contextual cues and the craving response. ET helps the patient to reduce craving when faced with cues triggering craving. ET includes in vivo exposure and imaginal exposure. The literature recommends being as close as possible to the context of addiction to facilitate the extinction of craving but in vivo ET is complicated to perform. For GD, in outpatient consultation, bringing a patient to a casino presents obstacles (e.g., time, human and financial cost, agreement with casino for therapy).

The study will be to assess the effectiveness of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) in a virtual gambling environment. Various trials show that VRET is no more or less effective than classical ET in CBT but has other advantages for motivation to treatment. This research aims to compare efficacy between CBT with VRET and CBT with imaginal exposure for treatment of GD in a multicenter, randomized, controlled, non-inferiority clinical trial.

Conditions

  • Gambling Disorder

Interventions

OTHER

cognitive-behavioral therapy for gambling disorder

6 sessions of cognitive-behavioral therapy for gambling disorder

OTHER

imaginal exposure therapy focus on gambling cues

6 sessions of imaginal exposure therapy focus on gambling cues

OTHER

virtual reality exposure therapy focus on gambling cues

6 sessions of virtual reality exposure therapy focus on gambling cues

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • Ministry of Health, France

    collaborator OTHER_GOV

  • University Hospital, Lille

    lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

  • Pierre TAQUET, PhD · University Hospital, Lille

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
OTHER
Masking
NONE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
18 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2023-07-12
Primary Completion
2027-07-31
Completion
2027-07-31

Countries

  • France

Study Locations

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Read the full study record

This page highlights key information. For complete eligibility criteria, study locations, investigator contacts, and the full protocol, visit the original record on ClinicalTrials.gov.

View NCT04467502 on ClinicalTrials.gov