Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy in Patients with Obsessive-Compulsive Disorder

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is a novel method that can be used for achieving symptom provocation in OCD in a controlled environment. In the current project, we aim to validate a virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) as a tool for provoking symptoms in people with OCD. We developed a virtual environment in which different kinds of OCD-specific items typical for home setting are displayed. We used dimensional approach to create specific tasks for patients suffering from symptoms of the following domains: ‘contamination/cleaning’, ‘symmetry/ordering’ and ‘fear-of-harm/checking’. We hypothesize that the degree of anxiety and tendency to perform compulsive behavior in people with OCD would be different from that of matched healthy controls. Specifically, we are interested in how would the symptoms change over time if the patient is repeatedly exposed to these OCD-provocative tasks and scenarios.