SynthesisJMIR mental health2024
Effectiveness and User Experience of Virtual Reality for Social Anxiety Disorder: Systematic Review.
Synthesis in JMIR mental health, 2024. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 3 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.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 3 syntheses or guidelines pooled it, 32 citations in OpenAlex.
- Effectiveness and Safety of Virtual Reality Interventions for Symptom Management in Adults Undergoing Hemodialysis: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Pooled it
- Facing fears in virtual worlds: A systematic review and meta-analysis on immersive VR therapy for children and adolescents with social anxiety and related disorders.European child & adolescent psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- Efficacy of digital interventions in social anxiety disorder: a systematic review and Bayesian network meta-analysis.Frontiers in psychiatry · 2026Pooled it
- A comparison of virtual reality and verbal imaginal exposure for childhood anxiety disorders.Journal of anxiety disorders · 2025Trial
- Health Care Workers' Perspectives on Virtual Reality in Mental Health: Qualitative Interview Study.JMIR human factors · 2026Article
- Artificial Intelligence-Integrated Virtual Reality in Mental Health Care: A Scoping Review of Evidence, Clinical Applications, and Future Directions.Journal of clinical medicine · 2026Review
- Usefulness of a virtual reality programme for body self-image in obese and overweight patients: a focus on gender differences - a randomised trial.Archives of public health = Archives belges de sante publique · 2026Article
- Virtual reality-based cognitive remediation in severe mental illness: Current evidence from a narrative review.Schizophrenia research. Cognition · 2026Review
- Virtualizing Alcohol Use Disorder Therapy: A Systematic Scoping Review.Advances in therapy · 2026Article
- Comparative efficacy of digital health interventions for depression and anxiety symptoms in adolescents and young adults: a systematic review and bayesian network meta-analysis.Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health · 2026Article
- Translating behavioral interventions into virtual reality: theFrontiers in digital health · 2026Article
- Virtual reality exposure training for music performance anxiety under pressure: a cross-cultural study of Chinese and Japanese music students.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Immersive metaverse art as a psychological intervention for depression and anxiety: a narrative review and multilevel model integrating engagement, cultural identity, and neurocognitive mechanisms.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Review
- Acceptability, Usability, and Insights Into Cybersickness Levels of a Novel Virtual Reality Environment for the Evaluation of Depressive Symptoms: Exploratory Observational Study.JMIR formative research · 2025Observational
- The Role of Virtual Reality and Artificial Intelligence in Cognitive Pain Therapy: A Narrative Review.Current pain and headache reports · 2024Review
- User Experiences With Fully Immersive Virtual Reality Applications in the Context of Speech-Language-Hearing Sciences. A Scoping Review.International journal of language & communication disordersArticle
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundSocial anxiety disorder (SAD) is a debilitating psychiatric disorder that affects occupational and social functioning. Virtual reality (VR) therapies can provide effective treatment for people with SAD. However, with rapid innovations in immersive VR technology, more contemporary research is required to examine the effectiveness and concomitant user experience outcomes (ie, safety, usability, acceptability, and attrition) of emerging VR interventions for SAD.
objectiveThe aim of this systematic review was to examine the effectiveness and user experience of contemporary VR interventions among people with SAD.
methodsThe Cochrane Library, Emcare, PsycINFO, PubMed, ScienceDirect, Scopus, and Web of Science databases were searched between January 1, 2012, and April 26, 2022. Deduplicated search results were screened based on title and abstract information. Full-text examination was conducted on 71 articles. Studies of all designs and comparator groups were included if they appraised the effectiveness and user experience outcomes of any immersive VR intervention among people with SAD. A standardized coding sheet was used to extract data on key participant, intervention, comparator, outcome, and study design items.
resultsThe findings were tabulated and discussed using a narrative synthesis. A total of 18 studies met the inclusion criteria.
conclusionsThe findings showed that VR exposure therapy-based interventions can generally provide effective, safe, usable, and acceptable treatments for adults with SAD. The average attrition rate from VR treatment was low (11.36%) despite some reported user experience difficulties, including potential simulator sickness, exposure-based emotional distress, and problems with managing treatment delivered in a synchronous group setting. This review also revealed several research gaps, including a lack of VR treatment studies on children and adolescents with SAD as well as a paucity of standardized assessments of VR user experience interactions. More studies are required to address these issues.
trial registrationPROSPERO CRD42022353891; https://www.crd.york.ac.uk/prospero/display_record.php?RecordID=353891.
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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.