Trial: VR can improve pain in hospitalized patients with cancer

Hospitalized patients with cancer often experience acute and/or chronic pain. Although virtual reality (VR) has been extensively studied across a wide range of clinical settings, no studies have yet evaluated potential impact on pain management in this patient population.

And so a randomized controlled trial was launched at an urban academic hospital to compare VR against an active control to mitigate moderate-severe cancer disease and treatment-related pain.

Findings

A total of 128 adult hospitalized patients with cancer (any tumor type) were randomized to 10 minutes of immersive VR distraction therapy or 10 minutes of two-dimensional guided imagery distraction therapy delivered by handheld tablet. Participants in the two arms were similar in age, sex, race, presence of metastatic disease, concurrent pain specialist consultation, and baseline opioid use.

Although both groups experienced improved self-reported pain scores (primary outcome), those randomized to VR experienced significantly greater reduction in pain immediately after intervention compared with active control (p = .03). This difference was sustained for 24 hours as well (p = .004).

Within-group analysis showed significant improvement in the VR arm of pain bothersomeness (p = .05) and general distress (p = .03) as well.

The conclusion is that VR provided more nonpharmacologic pain relief than active control and this benefit sustained long after the conclusion of the intervention.

The context

When it comes to healthcare, extended reality (XR) technologies — including virtual reality (VR) — are still in their infancy and we have a long way to go until they are more widely adopted by hospitals and health systems around the world. In the meantime, you can prepare yourself for this "brave new world" by learning all about it. To that end, we are offering the "XR in Healthcare" report as part of the DHArab Premium Membership. Join today and download it.