ArticleJournal of primary care & community health
Virtual Reality for Health Care Professionals During a Pandemic: A Pilot Program.
Article in Journal of primary care & community health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT04622527 (Acceptability of Virtual Reality Experience by Health Care Providers for Improving Focus and Reducing Anxiety), which is not on this map. Cited by 11 papers, 2 of them syntheses that pooled it.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Acceptability of Virtual Reality Experience by Health Care Providers for Improving Focus and Reducing Anxiety: A Pilot Trial
Who cites it
11 citing papers in PubMed, 2 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 31 citations in OpenAlex.
- The effect of virtual reality technology on the intervention of mental health problems among healthcare workers: a systematic review.Frontiers in public health · 2026Pooled it
- Determining the impact of mobile-based self-care applications on reducing anxiety in healthcare providers: a systematic review.BMC medical informatics and decision making · 2025Pooled it
- Brief repeated virtual nature contact for three weeks boosts university students' nature connectedness and psychological and physiological health during the COVID-19 pandemic: A pilot study.Frontiers in public health · 2022Trial
- Developing an anxiety management application for healthcare providers: a qualitative study on improving well-being.BMC health services research · 2025Article
- Current Clinical and Educational Uses of Immersive Reality in Anesthesia: Narrative Review.Journal of medical Internet research · 2025Review
- Effect of using virtual reality on fatigue and mental workload as key determinants of perceived stress in neonatal intensive care staff: A randomized controlled trial feasibility study and protocol.Nursing in critical care · 2025Article
- "University stress" exploring the potential impact of an immersive art experience on a college campus.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
- Review
- Smartphone-Based Virtual and Augmented Reality Implicit Association Training (VARIAT) for Reducing Implicit Biases Toward Patients Among Health Care Providers: App Development and Pilot Testing.JMIR serious games · 2024Article
- Leveraging the Metaverse for Enhanced Longevity as a Component of Health 4.0.Mayo Clinic proceedings. Digital health · 2024Review
- Smoking Cessation in Primary Care: A Narrative Review of Evidence-Based Treatment, Emerging Technology, and Harm Reduction Approaches.Journal of primary care & community healthReview
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
10 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
objectiveThe purpose of this pilot study was to evaluate the safety and use of a nature-based virtual reality (VR) experience among health care providers (HCP) during a pandemic.
methodsTwenty-four frontline HCP participated in this crossover pilot where the viewing order of the experiences were randomized. All participants attended in-person consent, baseline, and end-of-study visits. The intervention consisted of viewing 2 nature-based scenes ("walk in the woods" and "forest of focus") through 3-D VR and with computer 4K graphic imagery. Randomization took place with regards to the viewing order (VR vs 4K computer video, scene 1 and 2). Outcomes measured were safety, acceptability and changes in intensity of anxiety feelings, resilience, emotional distress, cognitive function, and self-efficacy.
resultsAmong the 26 HCP expressing interest in the study, 24 enrolled in this study. The majority were male (58.3%), white (66.7%) and of an average age of 46.3 ± 10.5 years (standard deviation (SD)). End of the study survey showed that almost all participants (96%) would participate in the study again and recommend it to others. Twenty-three of the 24 participants also felt relaxed after seeing the imagery. With respect to anxiety (as measured by the STAI Y1), the VR "walk in the woods" had the greatest reduction from pre to post (6.4 points, SD = 5.98) followed by VR "forest of focus" (5.8 points, SD = 9.29), computer screen "forest of focus" (5.0 points, SD = 8.89), and computer screen "walk in the woods" (4.1 points, SD = 6.22). All 4 sessions had a significant decrease in score from pre to post (P-values ≤.005), but there was no significant difference in the change from pre- to post-session between the 4 groups (P-value = .5835).
conclusionThe use of the VR among HCP has promise for reducing stress among health care providers during a high stress period, such as a pandemic but much larger studies are needed.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.