Digital Psychiatry with Virtual Reality and Augmented Reality: Recent Advances and Limitations

Digital psychiatry has rapidly expanded with the integration of immersive technologies such as virtual reality (VR) and augmented reality (AR). These modalities allow for controlled, engaging, and ecologically valid interventions across a wide range of psychiatric disorders. In this review, a narrative synthesis was conducted based on systematic reviews, meta-analyses, and randomized controlled trials identified through PubMed, Google Scholar, complemented by seminal earlier works. VR-based therapies demonstrated robust efficacy for anxiety disorders and phobias, with meta-analytic evidence supporting large effect sizes. For post-traumatic stress disorder virtual reality exposure therapy was superior to waitlist control and comparable to established psychotherapies, although AR exposure therapy remains underexplored. In autism spectrum disorder, VR and AR interventions significantly enhanced cognitive, social, and communication skills. AR applications have additionally been validated for cognitive assessment in Alzheimer's disease, and VR/AR-supported rehabilitation showed promise in attention deficit hyperactivity disorder and neurodevelopmental disorders. Despite encouraging findings, challenges remain, including small sample sizes, short follow-up periods, heterogeneity of protocols, and risks such as cybersickness or fatigue. VR and AR represent innovative tools with growing empirical support across psychiatric practice, extending from diagnostic assessment to therapeutic and rehabilitative interventions. Standardized protocols, large-scale trials, and long-term outcome studies are needed to integrate these technologies into routine clinical care.