Virtual Reality as a Support Tool for the Treatment of Flying Phobia: A Pilot Study

Abstract

Fear of flying is a real problem that affects the world's population. Approximately 25% of adults experience a significant increase in their anxiety levels when required to take any type of air transport and 10% of them avoid the situation. The approach that has proven to be the most effective in the treatment of phobias is in vivo exposure. However, the difficulty and the cost, and sometimes even the danger, of using real airplanes and real flights to expose people with fear of flying to these stimuli have daunted many researchers, therapists, and patients despite the prevalence and the impact of the fear of flying. We present in this study a virtual reality application that promotes a systematic exposure to the stimuli that causes significant increase in anxiety levels related to fear of flying through computer generated environments. To evaluate the proposed application, in special the "sense of presence" caused by it, we obtained qualitative data from interviews and questionnaires with the psychiatrists and a pilot patient.