Abstract
Background: Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder with symptoms that can severely affect patients’ quality of life. While drug administration inhibits most of the positive symptoms, it fails to effectively treat the negative symptoms and in turn relies on rehabilitation therapies. With technological progress, virtual reality (VR) has been the target of recent studies in terms of mental health rehabilitation and has been shown to be a tool with ecological validity in order to introduce the individual to situations similar to their daily life. Methods: From July to August 2021, we conducted a systematic review with the purpose of understanding the impact of virtual reality rehabilitation on negative symptoms and psychosocial rehabilitation in the schizophrenia spectrum. The searches were performed in the databases Web of Science, Scopus, and PubMed. Results: In our search, we identified 201 results, where 108 duplicates were excluded, resulting in a final balance of 93. After reading and assessing the titles and abstracts, 66 studies were excluded. Of the remaining 27 reports, 23 were excluded for not meeting the previously defined eligibility criteria, resulting in the inclusion of four studies in this systematic review. Conclusions: The available data on the specific topic was limited and could have been more complete. However, in our review, we were able to identify statistically relevant results demonstrating the effectiveness of intervention. We could find medium to large effects, allowing VR to be an ally for rehabilitation of symptoms related to schizophrenia.
Highlights
IntroductionAccording to the WHO, the psychiatric illness affects around 20 million people worldwide and is the most common psychotic illness [1]
Schizophrenia affects around 1% of the world’s population
After reading and evaluating the titles and abstracts, 66 studies were excluded: 24 because they were congress presentation files, 17 because they did not address rehabilitation, 14 because they did not fit the previously defined study design, 8 because they focused on positive symptomatology, 2 because they were animal studies, and 1 because it did not involve Healthcare 2021, 9p, xatients with schizophrenia
Summary
According to the WHO, the psychiatric illness affects around 20 million people worldwide and is the most common psychotic illness [1]. It is characterized by delusions, hallucinations, anhedonia, and apathy [2]. Schizophrenia is a chronic psychiatric disorder with symptoms that can severely affect patients’ quality of life. Methods: From July to August 2021, we conducted a systematic review with the purpose of understanding the impact of virtual reality rehabilitation on negative symptoms and psychosocial rehabilitation in the schizophrenia spectrum. Of the remaining 27 reports, 23 were excluded for not meeting the previously defined eligibility criteria, resulting in the inclusion of four studies in this systematic review. We could find medium to large effects, allowing VR to be an ally for rehabilitation of symptoms related to schizophrenia
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