Review on the Role of Virtual Reality in Reducing Mental Health Diseases Specifically Stress, Anxiety, and Depression

TL;DR

This review examines how virtual reality therapy can reduce stress, anxiety, and depression, highlighting promising results but emphasizing the need for more evidence before replacing traditional treatments.

Contribution

It synthesizes recent research on VR's effectiveness in mental health treatment, identifying its potential and current limitations.

Findings

VR shows effectiveness in reducing stress and anxiety.

VR has potential in treating depression and sleep issues.

Limited evidence prevents replacing traditional therapies.

Abstract

Objective: Virtual Reality (VR) is a technological interface that allows users to interact with a simulated environment. VR has been used extensively for mental health and clinical research. Mental health disorders are globally burdening health problems in the world. According to the Psychological Interventions Implementation Manual published by WHO on 6th March 2024, around one in eight people in the world lived with a mental disorder. This literature review is synthesized to find out the effects of VR therapy on stress, anxiety and depression. Method: We used Google Scholar database using keywords of VR, stress, anxiety and depression. Publication from last ten years (2014 to 1024) are considered. Researches only in the English language are included. All the papers and articles with the keyword VR missing were rejected. Result: Google Scholar yielded 17,700 results from our keywords. Nine studies met our search criteria that are included in this review. Out of nine, five studies encountered mental stress and gave effective results in reducing it by VR therapy. The other four targeted mood disorders, Social anxiety disorders, depression, loss of happiness and sleep deprivation. They also showed immense potential in reducing mental illness while using VR. Conclusion: Findings are in favor of the effectiveness of VR in reducing stress, anxiety and depression. Still, it is insufficient evidence to consider VR as solely independent treatment over the traditional medication. In future, the limitations can be overcome to relying on VR and using it in hospitals as a reliable source of cure for mental illness.