Anxiety Management with Immersive Virtual Reality in Newborn Parents Hospitalized in NICU

Virtual reality consists of a computer technology that generates three-dimensional environments in which the subject interacts in real time, creating a feeling of immersion similar to a real world experience. Given the decrease in costs at present with respect to the use of this technology, it could raise its usefulness in medical interventions.

To report a case, with the use of Immersive Virtual Reality, for the management of anxiety in the mother of an extreme premature.

Voluntary participation of a 27-week-old premature mother of: 1000 grams at birth, DBP and ECN 5 weeks old, 32-week EGC at the time of the intervention. An interview is conducted with the mother to contact emotions related to having an internal child in the NICU. Anxious symptomatology is evaluated after the interview with the mother with Beck`s anxiety inventory. Reality viewfinder with headphones is applied with a relaxing scenario and music not related to the NICU environment. After the intervention with RV, anxiety is reevaluated with the same instrument.

The mother refers to feel reassured after the use of virtual reality, and the anxiety scale shows a significant decrease in anxiety symptoms, lowering her score from 39 points (severe anxiety) to 7 points (mínimum level of anxiety).

Conclusion: The good results documented by the present study and the background of other studies worldwide motivate to design research Works concerning the evaluation of virtual reality’s therapeutic potential.