Co-designing a virtual reality exposure therapy with students experiencing school anxiety: a proof-of-concept study.

Area of Science:

• Psychiatry and Mental Health
• Educational Psychology
• Human-Computer Interaction

Background:

• School avoidance due to anxiety affects a significant number of students annually.
• Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy (VRET) is an emerging treatment for anxiety disorders.
• There is a need for innovative interventions to address school-related anxiety.

Purpose of the Study:

• To co-design a VRET intervention tailored for students with school-related anxiety.
• To evaluate the feasibility and initial effectiveness of the co-designed VRET.

Main Methods:

• Adolescents participated in design thinking workshops to co-create VRET content.
• An iterative development process was used to build the VRET prototype.
• Participants engaged in a single VRET session and provided feedback via a structured questionnaire.

Main Results:

• The VRET successfully induced anxiety responses in 89% of participants, a key component of exposure therapy.
• High ratings were reported for immersion (93%), believability of scenarios (94%), and relatability to the avatar (83%).
• 100% of participants believed VRET could help alleviate school anxiety.

Conclusions:

• The VRET prototype demonstrated favorable face validity for supporting anxious students.
• VRET presents a promising, scalable, and cost-effective early intervention strategy.
• This approach has the potential to reduce the severity of anxiety linked to school avoidance.