IDEAS home Printed from https://ideas.repec.org/a/gam/jijerp/v19y2022i7p4071-d782458.html
   My bibliography  Save this article

Virtual Reality Assisted Non-Pharmacological Treatments in Chronic Pain Management: A Systematic Review and Quantitative Meta-Analysis

Author

Listed:
  • Simone Grassini

    (Department of Social Studies, University of Stavanger, 4021 Stavanger, Norway
    Department of Psychology, NTNU–Norwegian University of Science and Technology, 7491 Trondheim, Norway)

Abstract

Virtual reality (VR) is a developing technology that has recently attracted the attention of healthcare practitioners. Recently, VR systems have been used to treat pain symptoms. The present study aims to evaluate the VR effectiveness on chronic pain management. A systematic literature search was performed following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines. Keywords were used to discover the potentially eligible studies. The primary focus of the present investigation was to evaluate the possible effect of VR-assisted treatments on chronic pain, especially in the commonly occurring low back and neck pain. Nine studies reporting randomized controlled trials were included in the present study. VR-mediated interventions demonstrated significant improvement for pain symptoms in patients experiencing chronic pain. In addition, VR-mediated therapy decreased pain intensity and disability in the case of chronic neck pain compared to control conditions. However, the VR interventions showed a statistically non-significant improvement in chronic low back pain when experimental groups were compared with controls. VR therapy positive effect on chronic pain did not differ from the one reported for other types of interventions for pain management, as physical exercise and laser therapy. Taken together, these findings showed that currently available lines of evidence on the effect of VR-mediated therapy in chronic pain management, despite pointing towards possible therapeutical benefits of the VR-based intervention, are overall inconclusive and that more research on VR-assisted therapy for chronic pain is needed.

Suggested Citation

  • Simone Grassini, 2022. "Virtual Reality Assisted Non-Pharmacological Treatments in Chronic Pain Management: A Systematic Review and Quantitative Meta-Analysis," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 19(7), pages 1-15, March.
    • Handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:7:p:4071-:d:782458
    as

    Download full text from publisher

    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/4071/pdf
    Download Restriction: no
    File URL: https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/19/7/4071/
    Download Restriction: no
    ---><---

    References listed on IDEAS

    as
    1. David Morales Tejera & Hector Beltran-Alacreu & Roberto Cano-de-la-Cuerda & Jose Vicente Leon Hernández & Aitor Martín-Pintado-Zugasti & César Calvo-Lobo & Alfonso Gil-Martínez & Josué Fernández-Carne, 2020. "Effects of Virtual Reality versus Exercise on Pain, Functional, Somatosensory and Psychosocial Outcomes in Patients with Non-specific Chronic Neck Pain: A Randomized Clinical Trial," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 17(16), pages 1-19, August.
    2. Evelyn Chan & Samantha Foster & Ryan Sambell & Paul Leong, 2018. "Clinical efficacy of virtual reality for acute procedural pain management: A systematic review and meta-analysis," PLOS ONE, Public Library of Science, vol. 13(7), pages 1-13, July.
    Full references (including those not matched with items on IDEAS)

    Citations

    Citations are extracted by the CitEc Project, subscribe to its RSS feed for this item.
    as


    Cited by:

    1. Beata Sokołowska, 2023. "Impact of Virtual Reality Cognitive and Motor Exercises on Brain Health," IJERPH, MDPI, vol. 20(5), pages 1-18, February.

    Most related items

    These are the items that most often cite the same works as this one and are cited by the same works as this one.

      Corrections

      All material on this site has been provided by the respective publishers and authors. You can help correct errors and omissions. When requesting a correction, please mention this item's handle: RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:19:y:2022:i:7:p:4071-:d:782458. See general information about how to correct material in RePEc.

      If you have authored this item and are not yet registered with RePEc, we encourage you to do it here. This allows to link your profile to this item. It also allows you to accept potential citations to this item that we are uncertain about.

      If CitEc recognized a bibliographic reference but did not link an item in RePEc to it, you can help with this form .

      If you know of missing items citing this one, you can help us creating those links by adding the relevant references in the same way as above, for each refering item. If you are a registered author of this item, you may also want to check the "citations" tab in your RePEc Author Service profile, as there may be some citations waiting for confirmation.

      For technical questions regarding this item, or to correct its authors, title, abstract, bibliographic or download information, contact: MDPI Indexing Manager (email available below). General contact details of provider: https://www.mdpi.com .

      Please note that corrections may take a couple of weeks to filter through the various RePEc services.

      IDEAS is a RePEc service. RePEc uses bibliographic data supplied by the respective publishers.