Abstract
To ensure the continuity of healthcare and to counter the spread of the COVID-19 pandemic, doctors and nursing staff at hospitals must face an insidious, invisible danger that is stretching the healthcare system far past its capacity. Excessive workload, inadequate protection from contamination, the need to manage patients experiencing extreme suffering and being kept apart from their families put medical personnel at high risk to experience stress and anxiety. Numerous scientific studies have shown that, among various therapeutic programs, virtual reality represents a highly specialized and effective tool for the prevention and treatment of stress and anxiety. However, the solutions developed using this technology for the management of stress and anxiety induced by the COVID-19 pandemic are still very limited, and none of these have been developed specifically for use with healthcare professionals. Therefore, this paper will detail the design and evaluation protocol of MIND-VR, a virtual reality-based psychoeducational experience on stress and anxiety developed following a user-centered design approach. The virtual experience will be tested on a sample of Italian hospital healthcare personnel involved in the COVID-19 pandemic emergency. MIND-VR is available free of charge, both in Italian and English, on the project website (https://mind-vr.com/).
Highlights
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is a global health emergency that is dramatically affecting the daily lives of millions of people worldwide (Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 2020), with serious consequences on a socioeconomic level and on individuals’ mental health (Cai et al, 2020a; Ma et al, 2020; Rogers et al, 2020; Vindegaard and Eriksen Benros, 2020; Zhao et al, 2020; Zheng, 2020)
To the best of our knowledge, MIND-Virtual reality (VR) represents one of the first few published virtual reality content designed to be used for psychological support for healthcare workers affected by the health crisis triggered by the COVID-19 pandemic
Since MIND-VR has been developed in Italian and in English, its use can be extended beyond Italian national borders and become a tool available free of charge worldwide for psychological support to doctors and nurses involved in the COVID-19 pandemic
Summary
The novel coronavirus disease (COVID-19) pandemic is a global health emergency that is dramatically affecting the daily lives of millions of people worldwide (Johns Hopkins Coronavirus Resource Center, 2020), with serious consequences on a socioeconomic level and on individuals’ mental health (Cai et al, 2020a; Ma et al, 2020; Rogers et al, 2020; Vindegaard and Eriksen Benros, 2020; Zhao et al, 2020; Zheng, 2020). Little attention has been paid so far to the practical implementation of psychological interventions to help hospital staff (Chen et al, 2020; Cheng et al, 2020; Weiner et al, 2020) Within this context, new approaches to mental health integrating advanced technologies such as virtual reality should be considered (Pallavicini and Bouchard, 2019; Imperatori et al, 2020; Riva et al, 2020; Riva and Wiederhold, 2020). This paper will detail the design and evaluation protocol of MIND-VR, a virtual reality-based psychoeducational experience on stress and anxiety developed following a user-centered design (UCD) approach This virtual experience will be tested on a sample of Italian hospital healthcare personnel involved in the COVID-19 pandemic emergency
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