The AVF catheter was inserted into the patients in the virtual reality group just before the clinic's standard haemodialysis procedure (5 minutes earlier), and the video continued to be played until the end of ten minutes after they were connected to the haemodialysis machine. Five minutes after the individual began watching the video, a routine AVF procedure was performed while the individual was still watching the video. During the haemodialysis, the patients in the VRGgroup were allowed to watch videos that they wanted to watch, such as walking in parks, nature and seaside hikes, underwater, museum tours, and feature films with VRGfor 10 minutes. After the time was up, the virtual reality application was terminated, and the VAS and the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory were filled out.

The control group was subjected to AVF catheter insertion for the standard haemodialysis procedure of the clinic. According to this standard practice, the patients were not subjected to any procedure before AVF access. After they were connected to the haemodialysis machine, the VAS and the StateTrait Anxiety Inventory were completed.

Individuals who met the inclusion criteria and signed the informed consent form were assigned to the study groups based on a list which was numbered and generated in the computer environment before the arteriovenous fistula (AVF) procedure. According to the results given by the computer programme, the individuals were assigned to the control group and the virtual realitiy group (VRG)group. While the control group included patients who underwent AVF procedure with the standard method, the virtual reality headset group included patients who underwent AVF procedure during the VRG application.

The Visual Analogue Scale (VAS) is a tool used to assess the severity of pain. The visual analog scale is a pain rating scale first used by Hayes and Patterson in 1921. It is used to quantify pain that cannot be measured numerically. Two extreme definitions of the pain parameter are written on the two ends of a 100-mm strip, and the patient is asked to indicate where his or her condition fits on this strip by drawing a line, dotting, or marking. It was also found that this scale was easy to understand and applicable for patients over five years of age and was a successful method for assessing the effectiveness of the pain relief method applied. It is a 100-mm (10-cm) ruler that can be used either horizontally or vertically, with no pain at one end and the worst pain at the other end."0 mm" indicates no pain, and "100 mm" indicates the worst pain. The individual indicates the severity of pain felt on this ruler. Based on these data, the horizontally prepared VAS was used to identify th

State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was developed by Spielberger et al., to assess state and trait anxiety levels and adapted into Turkish by Öner and Lecompte.The scale is based on the two-factor anxiety concept. The Kuder-Richardson reliability of the inventory was found to range from 83 to 87 for the trait anxiety subscale and 94 to 96 for the state anxiety subscale.

The test-retest reliability rates of the inventory ranged from 71 to 86 for the trait anxiety subscale and from 26 to 68 for the State Anxiety subscale and were considered adequate.In this study, Cronbach's alpha reliability coefficient of the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory was found to be 0.73 for the State Anxiety Inventory and 0.75 for the Trait Anxiety Inventory. The State-Trait Anxiety Inventory consists of a total of 40 items. The first 20 items assess the state-related anxiety level, while the items from 21 to 40 assess the trait anxiety level of the individual.