Virtual Reality Intervention for the Psychological Well-Being of Medical College Pupils in the COVID-19 Outbreak

다국어 초록 (Multilingual Abstract)

Psychological well-being problems in medical students exacerbated by COVID-19 epidemic, necessitating innovative interventions. During the COVID-19, the number of medical students with depression and anxiety increased. In recent years, immersive virtual reality (IVR) interventions have many advantages and can provide players with more realistic experiences than non-IVR. IVR systems using head-mounted display (HMD) devices have proven effective in ameliorating mental illness. The feasibility and usability of virtual reality interventions among medical students, particularly IVR experiences, have not been explored. This study examines the efficacy of an IVR intervention for the reduction of psychological distress during the lockdown. The study aims to prove that an IVR programme using an HMD can be as effective as traditional virtual reality rehabilitation, which is expensive and has high set-up costs. The design of the randomized controlled study was to conduct the study on the reduction of anxieties and depressions in 26 medical college students to test a feasibility and a usability of the IVR interventions. Individuals who gave informed consent were randomized on a 1:1 basis to the test group or the reference group. Only treatment groups were intervened with IVR, while control groups were not intervened. One intervention consisted of two sessions per week for six weeks. Each session consisted of trying out a standalone IVR (i.e. Oculus Quest II) followed by relaxing cybernetic content (i.e. Nature Treks VR). By comparing the preliminary test and the follow-up test results of the depression or fear tests, an analysis upon the results of the IVR intervention programme to overcome fear and depression in medical students due to COVID-19 was verified. In the treatment group, a t-test on the anxiety scale showed a significant decrease in anxiety with a t-value of -3.71, indicating a highly significant change (p <.001). The reference group had no substantial increase about anxiety. A depression scale for the experimental group showed a significant decrease in depression levels, with a t-value of -2.98 indicating a significant change (p < .01). In the reference group, levels of depression did not change substantially. These results suggest that HMD-based IVR interventions, as well as those using other modalities, can significantly reduce depressive and anxious disorders in medical students during a pandemic. A limit of this study is that the number of subjects was too small for generalization of the results. There is a need for a larger trial with a larger number of students in the near future.

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