Can Virtual Reality Improve the Progressive Muscular Relaxation Technique Efficacy?

Summary

The purposes of the current research project are as follows:

1. investigate if the PMRT associated with a personalized-relaxing scenario in VR can facilitate the recalling of the relaxing image in the real world than the standard procedure (consisting of PMRT associated with the in-imagination exposure to a comfortable subjective context). The investigators assume that VR would be more efficient than in-imagination since it would make easy the visualization process favor people cope with more realistic sensory experiences than in-imagination exposure. Accordingly, the VR exposure would elicit the strongest association between the relaxation procedure (neutral stimulus, NS) and the relaxing context in VR (conditioning stimulus, CS);
2. whether exposure to a personalized VREs has a more significant impact on anxiety, depression, stress, sense of presence, and quality of psychological well-being; these constructs are investigated by comparing the participants' performance on self-report questionnaires (described in the next section), before the start of the training (T0; baseline), at the end of all the four relaxing sessions, one week after the end of relaxation sessions (T1; day 7), and during follow up (T2; day 14);
3. if the relaxing sessions administered via Zoom are more proper for managing anxiety and stress than a procedure learned via an audio registration.

Considering the ability to generate vivid visual images is positively associated with the capacity to feel present in a virtual world, all the participants are asked to fulfill two questionnaires before the VR or the Guided Imagery exposure to investigate the vividness and the capacity to control mental images respectively, and to control the impact of these two dependent variables on the sense of presence self-reported after the in imagination or VR exposure.

Conditions

• Anxiety
• Coping Skills
• Depression
• Stress, Emotional
• Quality of Life

Interventions

COMBINATION_PRODUCT

Progressive Muscular Relaxation via Zoom, and Exposure to a Virtual Reality scenarios deployed by an Head mounted tool (Oculus Quest 2).

* Four individual PMRT sessions via Zoom. * In vivo PMRT relaxing session and Virtual Reality exposure (T1; day 7). * Follow-up phase (T2; day 14), after two weeks. Recovering the virtual reality scenario based on an in-imagination session, and the PMRT session.

COMBINATION_PRODUCT

Progressive Muscular Relaxation via Audio-track, and Exposure to a Virtual Reality scenarios deployed by an Head mounted tool (Oculus Quest 2).

* Four individual PMRT sessions via Audio-track. * In vivo PMRT relaxing session and Virtual Reality exposure (T1; day 7). * Follow-up phase (T2; day 14), after two weeks. Recovering the virtual reality scenario based on an in-imagination session, and the PMRT session.

BEHAVIORAL

Progressive Muscular Relaxation via Zoom, and Exposure to a Guided Imagery Exposure.

* Four individual PMRT sessions via Zoom. * In vivo PMRT relaxing session and Guided Imagery conducted by the Psychotherapist (T1; day 7). * Follow-up phase (T2; day 14), after two weeks. Recovering the in-imagination relaxing scenario and PMRT session.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• University of Padova

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Caterina Novara, PhD · University of Padova

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2022-02-08

Primary Completion

2023-07-24

Completion

2023-07-24

Countries

• Italy

Study Locations