Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Feb 13, 2020
Date Accepted: Jun 8, 2020
Virtual Reality Meditation: Pilot Study of Feasibility among Youth Experiencing Homelessness
ABSTRACT
Background:
Homelessness among youth is devastating with high rates of substance use disorders and mental health comorbidity. Mindfulness-based interventions (MBI) that include meditation and mindfulness skills training reduce stress and symptoms of anxiety or depression. However, engaging high-risk youth in interventions is challenging. Virtual reality (VR) is a more flexible platform for delivering meditation and may be appealing to youth.
Objective:
The study objectives were to evaluate the feasibility of delivering VR meditation to homeless youth and estimate preliminary effects on anxiety and physiologic stress.
Methods:
A sample of 30 youth experiencing homelessness were enrolled. Youth were randomized to receive 10 minutes of one of three interventions: 1) VR meditation, 2) audio meditation (though web-based platform), or 3) VR imagery of historical pictures and text. Subjects who consented to the study attended two research visits. The first visit collected survey measures of demographics, mental health, and substance use, and oriented subjects to the intervention platforms. The second visit (1-3 days later) delivered the intervention and collected pre-post- measures of anxiety and physiologic stress (salivary cortisol). Changes in anxiety and cortisol were compared across groups using linear regression model in which the primary analysis compared VR-meditation to audio meditation and secondary analyses compared VR-meditation to VR-imagery.
Results:
Anxiety scores decreased in all groups, with a larger reduction among the VR-meditation (difference=10.8), compared to web-based meditation or VR-images (differences 5.8 and 5.0, respectively). After controlling for baseline values there were no significant group differences in changes in anxiety scores or cortisol. In comparing VR-meditation and audio meditation, the effect size for anxiety was moderate (d=0.58) while the effect size for cortisol was small (d= 0.08).
Conclusions:
Preliminary results suggest VR-meditation has moderate benefit for anxiety, but not physiologic stress. Future research is needed to confirm results in a larger sample and to investigate whether effects are sustained or increase with repeated use of VR-mediation. VR-meditation appears feasible to deliver among homeless youth and merits further study. Clinical Trial: NCT04004520
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