Exploring Relations Between Unique Patient Characteristics and Virtual Reality Immersion Level on Anxiety and Pain in Patients Undergoing Venipuncture: Secondary Analysis of a Randomized Control Trial
ABSTRACT
Virtual reality (VR) has been widely studied as a digital tool for managing acute pain and anxiety in pediatric patients during medical procedures. This study investigates how specific patient characteristics and the level of immersion in VR impact anxiety and pain levels during venipuncture procedures.
OBJECTIVE
The study aims to determine how patient characteristics and VR immersion level affect anxiety and pain levels in pediatric patients undergoing venipuncture.
METHODS
The study is a secondary analysis of two previously published randomized control trials involving 252 pediatric patients aged 10-21 years at Children’s Hospital Los Angeles. The analysis used conditional process analysis to assess the impact of immersion level during the VR intervention.
RESULTS
Significant moderation was found between the level of immersion and anxiety sensitivity when predicting postprocedural anxiety. Patients with high anxiety sensitivity and high immersion levels reported the most significant reduction in postprocedural anxiety. No other factors were found to significantly impact the effect of immersion on postprocedural anxiety or pain.
CONCLUSIONS
The study concludes that VR is most effective for patients with higher anxiety sensitivity who report feeling highly immersed. Age, location of the procedure, and gender of the patient did not significantly impact VR’s success in managing postprocedural pain or anxiety, suggesting that immersive VR may be beneficial for a broad pediatric population.
TRIAL REGISTRATION: ClinicalTrials.gov NCT04268901; https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT04268901.
PMID:38949862 | DOI:10.2196/53196
