Virtual Reality Implementation in Mental Health Care Is a Marathon, Not a Sprint: Qualitative Longitudinal Study of a Virtual Reality Training Program

TL;DR

A VR training program for therapists improved their confidence but failed to ensure lasting use of VR in mental health care due to ongoing organizational barriers.

Contribution

This study introduces a longitudinal approach to evaluating VR implementation in mental health care, revealing stage-specific needs and barriers.

Findings

VR training improved therapists' knowledge and confidence but did not lead to sustained VR use in practice.

Barriers like workflow misalignment and lack of organizational support persisted over time.

Successful VR implementation requires combining training with organizational changes that evolve over time.

Abstract

Despite the potential of virtual reality (VR) for treatment and assessment in mental health care, its practical implementation remains limited. Much implementation research explores barriers and facilitators; fewer studies actually evaluate targeted implementation strategies and track how their effects evolve over time in mental health care practice.

This study aims to examine how a structured VR training program functioned as an implementation strategy in routine mental health care and to identify how therapists’ adoption trajectories and implementation needs shifted across stages of the process.

Eleven therapists from a Dutch mental health care organization completed a 6-session VR training. Semistructured interviews were conducted at 3 time points: pretraining, immediately posttraining, and 3 months posttraining. Data were deductively analyzed using theoretical thematic analysis based on the capability, opportunity, motivation – behavior model and the Theoretical Domains Framework to map stage-specific changes in implementation needs relating to VR use.

The training improved therapists’ perceived knowledge, skills, and confidence in using VR. Nonetheless, actual uptake of VR in clinical routines remained limited. Enduring barriers included workflow misalignment, hierarchical decision-making structures, and the absence of a shared organizational vision and sustained leadership support. The longitudinal design revealed a dynamic pattern: early adoption hinged on individual capability and motivation, whereas maintenance depended on organizational opportunity and communicated support. These stage-specific shifts clarify why training alone does not translate into routine use and which organizational levers are most important when.

VR training for therapists is a necessary but insufficient implementation strategy in mental health care. A longitudinal approach shows that successful implementation requires pairing training with organization-level changes that address opportunity barriers over time. By shifting from static evaluations of whether training works to a process-oriented focus on what support is needed at each stage of implementation, this study advances implementation science in digital mental health and offers actionable guidance for embedding VR in routine care.

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