ArticleNPJ digital medicine2025
Virtual nature, real relief: how exposure to virtual natural environments reduces anxiety, stress, and depression in healthy adults.
Article in NPJ digital medicine, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 8 papers, 1 of them a synthesis 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
8 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it.
- Virtual Reality Interventions for Stress Reduction in the General Population: Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis of Randomized Controlled Trials.Journal of medical Internet research · 2026Pooled it
- Stress recovery effects of visual exposure to bamboo landscapes in urban parks: Evidence from physiological and psychological responses.Scientific reports · 2026Article
- Effects of Digital Nature Interventions on Positive Psychological Outcomes: A Scoping Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2026Review
- Long-term effects of urban biophilic art environments on depression and anxiety symptoms: a longitudinal intervention study.BMC psychology · 2026Article
- Feasibility of a brief group-based immersive 360° mindfulness program for stress-related outcomes in health sciences students: a 4-week pre-post pilot study.Frontiers in medicine · 2026Article
- How virtual urban green spaces influence stress and risk-taking.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Effects of virtual nature scenes and imagery dialogue intervention on academic anxiety in college students.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Perceived community exercise environment and loneliness among middle-aged and older adults in China: psychosocial-behavioral associations, latent profiles, and network analysis.Frontiers in public health · 2026Article
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.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Stress, anxiety, and depression represent significant challenges to global public health. Exposure to virtual natural environments, as a convenient and scalable intervention, has shown uncertain effects on healthy adults. This systematic review and meta-analysis aims to comprehensively evaluate the impact of exposure to virtual natural environments on stress, anxiety, and depression in healthy adults. A total of 24 studies were included after searching five databases. The results indicate that exposure to virtual natural environments effectively reduces anxiety levels (SMD = 0.82, p < 0.001, large effect), stress levels (SMD = 0.577, p = 0.003, moderate effect), and depression levels (SMD = 0.621, p < 0.001, moderate effect) in healthy adults. These findings suggest that exposure to virtual natural environments has a positive impact on mental health and can serve as a viable alternative when direct access to natural environments is not feasible.
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.