@article{bouchard_side_2009,

title = {Side effects of immersions in virtual reality for people suffering from anxiety disorders},

author = {S. Bouchard and J. St-Jacques and P. Renaud and B. K. Wiederhold},

url = {https://www.scopus.com/inward/record.uri?eid=2-s2.0-79951669278&partnerID=40&md5=95f1086038ef0b2259780162f8c2082f},

issn = {17849934},

year  = {2009},

date = {2009-01-01},

journal = {Journal of Cyber Therapy and Rehabilitation},

volume = {2},

number = {2},

pages = {127–137},

abstract = {Side effects caused by immersions in virtual reality (VR) have been documented in experimental studies and with healthy people. With the growing interest of VR applications to assess and treat mental disorders, empirical information on side effects in clinical populations is needed. Three studies were conducted to: (a) describe symptoms and scores on the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire (SSQ) in a sample of 157 adults immersed in VR to treat their phobias, (b) compare exposure treatments involving more or less actions and motions (N = 34); and (c) document the usefulness of assessing symptoms prior to the immersion in VR and following up 26 phobic patients 24 hours post-immersion. Overall, results show that most participants experienced slight side effects, symptoms were strong even before immersion in VR and there are no reasons to be generally concerned with health and safety issues within 24 hours after therapy sessions. Exposure in VR to treat fear of flying was associated with fewer side effects than for other anxiety disorders. The scores on the SSQ were much higher than in studies conducted with non-clinical samples, raising several research questions. Side effects should not be a source of worries but they must be closely monitored and systematically reported in outcome studies. © Virtual Reality Medical Institute.},

keywords = {Anxiety disorder, article, body movement, clinical feature, cybersickness, disorientation, Fear, human, intermethod comparison, medical assessment, motion sickness, named inventories, nausea, patient safety, phobia, questionnaires and rating scales, Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, virtual reality},

pubstate = {published},

tppubtype = {article}

}