ArticleArchives of gynecology and obstetrics2025
Virtual reality-based pain control in endometriosis: a questionnaire-based pilot study of applications for relaxation and physical activity.
Article in Archives of gynecology and obstetrics, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 1 paper.
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
1 citing paper in PubMed.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
6 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
purposeVirtual reality (VR) based technology may offer new avenues in the management of chronic endometriosis-related pain. Our prospective, 14-week, open, three-phase, cross-over pilot study investigated whether the use of VR technology equipped with a relaxation-inducing application (VR-R) or an activity-stimulating application (VR-A) could change endometriosis-related chronic pelvic pain levels and impairment of daily life.
methods23 women aged 32.7 (SD 8.2) with endometriosis-related pelvic pain were each assigned to a permutated sequence of three 4-week phases: (A) the VR-R, (B) VR-A, and (C) intervention-free control phases. Phases were separated by two interspersed 1-week washout phases. Main outcome measures included: momentary, average, and maximum pain intensities on a 0-10 numerical rating scale (NRS); the Pain Disability Index (PDI) score; the Pain Catastrophizing Scale (PCS) score; sleep quality (Medical Outcomes Study Sleep Scale (MOS-SS) score); the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS) score; and the general health-related quality-of-life score (Short Form (12) Health Survey (SF-12)).
resultsCompared to baseline, VR-R use showed statistically significant positive effects for several scores (NRS "average pain"; PDI "total score"; PCS "total score" and the "magnification", "rumination", and "helplessness" subscores; MOSS-SS "index I and II"; and the DASS "depression" and "stress" subscores), whereas VR-A yielded significant positive changes only for PDI "total score"; PCS "total score" and the "helplessness" and "magnification" subscores; MOSS-SS "index II"; and DASS "depression" and "stress". As four scale scores also showed significant improvements for control, a comparison of the effects was performed to offset a potential placebo-like effect by comparing difference from baseline against control. This analysis yielded significantly greater positive effects only for VR-R: PCS "total score" and "helplessness"; MOSS-SS "index I" and "index II"; and the three DASS subscores "depression", "anxiety", and "stress". SF-12 showed no significant changes in either analysis.
conclusionsVR-R and VR-A showed positive effects on several pain and quality-of-life scores, which were significant for some scores compared to baseline. For VR-R, some of these improvements were indeed significantly greater than under control conditions, while the effects with VR-A were not. Larger studies are needed to corroborate these findings.
trial registrationDRKS00030189.
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.