Virtual reality for pain and anxiety management during painful procedures in hospitalized older patients: A randomized controlled trial.

Background

The medical environment can generate stressful and anxiety-provoking situations for patients, particularly during painful care procedures on the older population. These stressful conditions have negative effects on the quality of care and can even put the patient at risk and set the care team up for failure. The development of new technologies such as virtual reality (VR) seems to be an answer to this problem. The objective of this study is to examine the effects of virtual reality (personalized or non-personalized) on pain and anxiety when caring for elderly hospitalized people and compare them with the effects of usual care.

Method

This single center, randomized, controlled study was conducted on 87 participants recruited from the geriatric departments of Cimiez Hospital, Nice, France. Participants were randomly assigned to one of three groups: control group, personalized VR group, or non-personalized VR group. The experiment was conducted while participants underwent a painful care procedure, with pain and anxiety assessments conducted before, during, and immediately after.

Results

The findings indicate that VR had a significant effect on reducing both pain and anxiety when compared to the control group receiving standard care. However, no significant difference was observed between the personalized VR group and the non-personalized VR group. TRIAL REGISTRATION ClinicalTrials.gov, NCT05759026. Registered on March 8, 2023. Version identifier is N° id RCB 2023-A00556-39 - N° 22-PP-23-03/14/23. PUBLISHED STUDY PROTOCOL: https://doi.org/10.1016/j.cct.2025.107990.