MedTrace Logo

Virtual Reality Therapy for Voice Hearing (VR-VOICES): a Randomized Controlled Trial

NCT06013748 · Status: RECRUITING · Phase: NA · Type: INTERVENTIONAL · Enrollment: 112

Last updated 2025-09-10

No results posted yet for this study

Summary

Rationale: Auditory verbal hallucinations (AVH) - hearing voices that others cannot hear - are common in mental illnesses. For many people AVH are distressing, disabling and persistent, despite medication. Current psychological interventions show low to medium effects. Preliminary studies suggest that an innovative empowering psychological therapy using computer simulations representing the AVH (avatars) can be effective for reducing AVH distress and frequency. Virtual reality (VR) has the potential to improve this treatment. Therefore, we developed a novel VR treatment for this problem. In this study, the effect of this treatment will be investigated.

Objective: To test the effect of a novel VR treatment for AVH (VR-VOICES) on distress and frequency of AVH in patients with a psychiatric disorder. Furthermore, to investigate the effect of VR-VOICES on clinical symptoms, quality of life, and healthcare costs of the treatment.

Conditions

  • Hallucinations, Verbal Auditory

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

VR-VOICES

7-10 individual VR assisted therapy for voice-hearing session and two booster sessions, in addition to TAU.

OTHER

Treatment as usual

Treatment as usual as provided by the mental health centers

Sponsors & Collaborators

  • ZonMw: The Netherlands Organisation for Health Research and Development

    collaborator OTHER

  • University Medical Center Groningen

    lead OTHER

Study Design

Allocation
RANDOMIZED
Purpose
TREATMENT
Masking
SINGLE
Model
PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age
16 Years
Sex
ALL
Healthy Volunteers
No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start
2022-10-31
Primary Completion
2026-02-01
Completion
2026-02-01

Countries

  • Netherlands

Study Locations

More Related Trials

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 NCT06013748 on ClinicalTrials.gov