Predicting who will benefit from relaxation or stress reduction through virtual reality

Although the attempts to use virtual reality (VR) for stress reduction or relaxation are increasing, the evidence on who will benefit is still lacking. In this study, we aimed to identify the clinical and physiological predictors for effectiveness of stress reduction or relaxation using VR. 83 healthy, but highly stressed adults were enrolled for the study. At baseline, demographic information and medical history were collected and physiological parameters including heart rate variability were extracted. Subjects were evaluated subjective discomfort using the State-Trait Anxiety Inventory-X-1, the 0-100 Numeric rating scale repetitively throughout the VR application. To identify the predictors for the effectiveness of VR relaxation, correlation analyses and multivariate regression analyses were conducted. As results, we found that smoking is negatively associated with the effectiveness of VR relaxation and baseline subjective discomfort, respiratory rate and heart rate are positively associated with the effectiveness of VR relaxation. This suggest that the effect of VR relaxation is large in people with high respiratory rate and heart rate, and that the effect is reduced in smokers.