Impact of Virtual Reality (e-Nature VR) During Hospitalization in Adult Intensive Care Unit

Impact of Virtual Reality (e-Nature VR) During Hospitalization in Adult Intensive Care Unit

Randomized clinical trial to analyze the perceived impact of the virtual reality intervention on the experience of pain and well-being, and the influence on vital signs and the relationship with the length of stay in the intensive care unit.

The highly specialized and complex technology used in intensive care units to provide continuous monitoring of the patient health context makes possible to increase the survival of patients with critical and unstable clinical status, but increases the triggering factors of the stress of hospitalized patients. Staying in these therapy units is accompanied by additional stress, confusional mental states, cognitive dysfunction, and depression. Virtual reality is a technique that involves the use of computer technology to create the effect of an interactive three-dimensional world in which objects have a spatial presence reducing the suffering related to a medical procedure, without side effects and without the need for additional personnel. Actual exposure to nature can be difficult to achieve for patients admitted to intensive care. Therefore, exposure to nature via media devices, and virtual reality (VR) is considered a promising technology due to its advantage in creating a sense of immersion. Furthermore, some evidence indicates that virtual nature can improve attentional resources, cognitive performance, and pain experience.

This clinical trial aims to analyze the influence of VR use in patients of Intensive Care Unit (ICU). After informed the consent form, participants will be randomly into control and intervention groups. Blood pressure, heart rate, respiratory rate, oxygen saturation will be evaluated, in addition to the experience of well-being and pain immediately before and immediately after the intervention for 2 consecutive days.The hypothesis of the study is that VR will positively influence vital signs and lived experiences, which will consequently reduce the length of stay in the ICU.

Inclusion Criteria:

• individuals of both sexes;
• without communication, vision, hearing or intellectual disabilities;
• capable of mental to fill in the questionnaires;
• who watch at least 5 minutes of the video, minimum physiological immersion time.

Exclusion Criteria:

• use of sedatives;
• those who experience considerable discomfort possibly caused by virtual reality such as nausea, dizziness or headache, with a history of vertigo, nausea, vomiting;
• convulsion, labyrinthitis, epilepsy, dementia, mental confusion, psychomotor agitation;
• claustrophobia or expressing a desire to discontinue the study;
• patients who use anticholinergic drugs (antipsychotics and benzodiazepines);
• delirium;
• clinical worsening.