Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Sep 26, 2024
Date Accepted: Dec 15, 2024
Impact of a virtual reality intervention on stigma, empathy, attitudes towards patients with psychotic disorders among mental healthcare professionals: A randomized controlled trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Previous studies have found that schizophrenia is one of the most stigmatized mental disorders and virtual reality (VR) interventions have been associated with improvements in attitudes, empathy, and reduction of stigma towards individuals with mental disorders, especially amongst undergraduates but not in mental healthcare professionals.
Objective:
We aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of a newly developed VR intervention in improving attitudes, empathy, and reduction of stigma towards persons with psychotic disorders amongst mental healthcare workers.
Methods:
We conducted a randomized controlled trial and recruited eligible mental healthcare professionals from a tertiary mental healthcare institute. Both arms (VR intervention and VR control groups) were evaluated at baseline, post intervention and one month follow up, regarding outcomes related to attitudes (modified Attitudes Towards People with Schizophrenia scale), stigma (Social Distance Scale, Personal Stigma Scale) and empathy (Empathetic concern subscale of the Interpersonal Reactivity Index). Acceptability of VR intervention was assessed using user satisfaction questionnaire and qualitative feedback was gathered. The study has been registered at clinicaltrial.gov (NCT05982548).
Results:
Overall, 180 participants participated and completed the study. Both groups showed improvements of attitudes, social distance, and stigma scores but not empathy following the intervention. The VR intervention group had better user satisfaction compared with the VR control group. In addition, certain outcome measures were positively associated with specific factors including female gender, higher education level, certain job roles, years of work, and presence of loved ones with mental disorder.
Conclusions:
As an entire group, VR showed improvements in attitudes, stigma, and social distance towards persons with psychotic disorders amongst mental healthcare workers. Future longitudinal studies may want to evaluate the impact of VR on caregivers and public on these same and other outcome measures to reduce stigma and improve empathy towards individuals with psychotic disorders. Clinical Trial: The study has been registered at clinicaltrial.gov (NCT05982548).
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.