Impact VR: Building Socioemotional Resilience in Youth with Conduct Disorder

TL;DR

A VR intervention called Impact VR improved emotion recognition and social relationships in teens with conduct disorder.

Contribution

Impact VR is a novel, immersive intervention that shows promise for improving socioemotional functioning in youth with conduct disorder.

Findings

Impact VR significantly improved emotion recognition accuracy for fear, sadness, and anger.

Participants reported stronger peer and parental relationships after the intervention.

Social stress was reduced in Impact VR participants at the 3-month follow-up.

Abstract

Adolescents with conduct disorder (CD) often exhibit deficits in emotion recognition, strained parent and peer relationships, and elevated social stress. This randomized controlled trial tested Impact VR, a brief, immersive socioemotional intervention, with the aim of building protective factors and improving socioemotional functioning among youth with CD. A total of 110 adolescents with CD (Mage = 13.79; 58% male) were randomized to either the Impact VR intervention or an active control. Outcomes were assessed at baseline, post-intervention, and 3-month follow-up, including emotion recognition accuracy (ER40 total and subscales: fear, sadness, anger, happy, neutral), self-reported peer relationships, parent relationships, and social stress. Mixed-effects models controlled for baseline scores. Impact VR produced significant improvements in ER40 total accuracy (d = 0.74, p < .001), with specific gains for fear (d = 0.54, p < .001), sadness (d = 0.75, p < .001), and anger (d = 0.50, p = .014). No group differences emerged for happy (p = .126) or neutral (p = .050). Impact VR participants also reported stronger peer relationships (d = 0.58, p = .002) and parental relationships (d = 0.54, p < .001), and reductions in social stress at the 3-month follow-up (d = 0.53, p < .001). Findings demonstrate that even brief, scalable interventions delivered through immersive virtual experiences can yield meaningful improvements in socioemotional functioning for adolescents with CD. Impact VR represents a promising, engaging, and developmentally sensitive addition to the prevention science toolbox.

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