A Virtual Reality Game to Assess Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry
• Clinical Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• Current psychiatric diagnosis relies on subjective interviews, highlighting a need for objective assessment tools.
• Virtual reality (VR) presents an opportunity for controlled symptom provocation and direct clinical evaluation.

Purpose of the Study:

• To assess the efficacy of a VR game in provoking obsessive-compulsive disorder (OCD) symptoms.
• To evaluate the tolerability of the VR game in OCD patients.
• To explore VR's potential for standardizing OCD diagnosis.

Main Methods:

• Development of a first-person perspective VR game presenting 15 OCD-specific items.
• Standardized assessment of OCD symptoms including compulsions, anxiety, tension, uncertainty, and urge to control.
• Pilot study involving 8 OCD patients and 8 healthy controls.

Main Results:

• OCD patients exhibited significantly more compulsions during the VR game (U=5, p=0.003).
• OCD patients reported higher levels of anxiety, tension, uncertainty, and urge to control, though not statistically significant due to sample size.
• The VR game was well-tolerated with no significant adverse effects.

Conclusions:

• The VR game effectively provokes OCD symptoms in patients compared to controls.
• VR technology shows promise as a valuable tool for objective and standardized OCD diagnosis.