Is Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Effective for Service Members and Veterans Experiencing Combat-Related PTSD?

Abstract

Purpose: Exposure therapy has been identified as an effective treatment for anxiety disorders, including posttraumatic stress disorder (PTSD). The use of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) in the past decade has increased due to improvements in virtual reality technology. VRET has been used to treat active duty service members and veterans experiencing posttraumatic stress symptoms by exposing them to a virtual environment patterned after the real-world environment in which the trauma occurred. This article is a systematic review of the effectiveness of using VRET with these two populations. Method: A search of 14 databases yielded 6 studies with experimental or quasi-experimental designs where VRET was used with active duty service members or veterans diagnosed with combat-related PTSD. Results: Studies show positive results for the use of VRET in treating combat-related PTSD, though more trials are needed with both active duty service members and veterans. Conclusions: VRET is an effective treatment, however more studies including random assignment are needed in order to show whether it is more effective than other treatments. There are still many barriers that the use of VRET with military populations would need to overcome in order to be widely used, including helping veterans become accustomed to the technology; assisting veterans who have spent a longer period of time avoiding anxiety-inducing stimuli in accepting an initial increase in anxiety; clinician concerns about the technology interfering with the therapeutic alliance, and clinician biases against the use of exposure therapy in general; and high treatment dropout rates.