Virtual reality roleplays for patients with depression: A user experience evaluation.

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry and Mental Health
• Human-Computer Interaction
• Psychotherapy Research

Background:

• Virtual reality (VR) is an emerging tool in psychotherapy, with limited application in depression treatment.
• Existing VR interventions for mental health often focus on social interactions, but haven't been applied to depression therapy.
• VR offers potential for psychodynamic psychotherapy, particularly for exploring interpersonal conflict patterns.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate a VR intervention for simulating roleplay situations in supportive-expressive therapy for depression.
• To assess the user experience (UX) and identify usability issues of the VR intervention in a clinical setting.

Main Methods:

• A clinical UX study was conducted with 8 inpatients with depression and 4 therapists at a German psychotherapeutic clinic.
• Data collection involved semi-structured interviews, qualitative content analysis, usability questionnaires, and technical usage data.
• The VR intervention featured therapist-controlled roleplay scenarios for addressing core conflictual relationship themes, including therapeutic debriefing with recorded sessions.

Main Results:

• Patients reported 26 UX issues, with 3 major problems including technical malfunctions and agent interaction clarity.
• Therapists identified 14 UX issues, with 5 major problems related to the dialog control interface and system setup complexity.
• The primary challenge was balancing complex conversational flows with a clear control interface in the VR system.

Conclusions:

• VR roleplays can be integrated safely and effectively into psychotherapy for depression.
• The developed VR intervention shows potential for providing emotional experiences of interpersonal conflict patterns.
• Further development requires creating diverse roleplay situations and evaluating their suitability for patients' core conflictual relationship themes.