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Updated: Sep 26, 2025
The Immersive Cleveland Clinic Virtual Reality Shopping Platform for the Assessment of Instrumental Activities of Daily Living
Published on: July 28, 2022
Using virtual reality in palliative care: a systematic integrative review
Hannah Carmont1, Sonja McIlfatrick2
1Lecturer, Adult Nursing, Ulster University, UK.
Background:
Recently, healthcare services have witnessed an exponential increase in the use of immersive and non-immersive virtual reality (VR) technology to improve health-related outcomes. However, the use of VR in palliative care remains relatively unexplored.
Aims:
To review and synthesise evidence regarding the experiences of patients, families and healthcare professionals in palliative care who have engaged with immersive/non-immersive VR technology.
Methods:
A systematic integrative review using pre-defined MeSH search terms to identify eligible studies from five electronic databases (Cochrane Library, CINAHL, OVID Medline, Pubmed and Scopus) between April 2020 and February 2021.
Findings:
In total, 1066 articles were reviewed, 55 articles were considered eligible and subject to further analysis and a total of 16 articles met the inclusion criteria and were subject to critical appraisal. Rigorous analysis of eligible articles resulted in the identification of five overarching and interconnected themes: connection, VR as an emergent technology, perceptual change, safety, and future research.
Conclusion:
This review identified that VR could support patients, families and healthcare professionals in palliative care. As a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, the findings could prove particularly significant for facilitating connection. However, further research is necessary to explore the full scope of VR use in this speciality.
