A Gamified Approach for Alcohol Use Disorder Therapy in Virtual Reality

In the therapy of alcohol use disorder, cue-exposure therapy is an established therapeutical approach to generate cravings in patients. A short-coming of traditional cue-exposure is that the environment of the therapy is not similar to the environment of consumption for the patient. The introduction of virtual reality has the potential to fix this short-coming, as virtual reality is an immersive technology where virtual environments can be presented to the user. In this paper, a prototype and a feasibility study are presented where virtual reality is combined with gamification to immerse the patient into environments where urges can be created and, through gamification, increase the motivation and help learning new behaviors for the patient. In the following study, 8 participants who are in therapy for alcohol use disorder tested and evaluated the prototype through a structured questionnaire and unstructured commentary. The results show that (1) the use of gamification increased the motivation and enjoyment of the participants, (2) the virtual environments and the specific tasks were seen as immersive and realistic, and (3) an urge for consumption was generated in some of the participants after using the prototype.