Virtual Reality Glasses Reduce Patients' Anxiety During Emergency Surgical Procedures Under Local Anesthesia: A...

In the emergency department patients experience high levels of anxiety during suturing because they are conscious, feel pain, are suffering owing to trauma, and believe they will experience pain during the suturing. This study aimed to evaluate the effect of virtual reality glasses on patients' anxiety during the suturing under local anesthesia in the emergency department.

This prospective, parallel 2-arm, randomized controlled clinical study involved 138 patients admitted to the emergency department of a public hospital in Mersin, Turkey. The virtual reality glasses group (n = 69) watched videos through virtual reality glasses during the suturing, and the control group (n = 69) received routine practice. Patients' anxiety level was assessed using the State Anxiety Inventory and measured via physiological responses to anxiety, such as changes in systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, and peripheral oxygen saturation, before and after suturing.

Watching videos through virtual reality glasses resulted in significantly lower State Anxiety Inventory scores and different systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure, respiratory rate, and peripheral oxygen saturation, but not heart rate, in the virtual reality glasses group than the control group after suturing (P < 0.05).

The study results suggest that virtual reality glasses attenuate psychological and physiological responses to anxiety in patients during emergency suturing under local anesthesia, positively affecting all examined physiological parameters except heart rate. Therefore, nurses can use virtual reality glasses to reduce anxiety in patients undergoing suturing in the emergency department.