TY - JOUR T1 - Evaluation of FlowVR: a virtual reality game for improvement of depressive mood JF - bioRxiv DO - 10.1101/451245 SP - 451245 AU - Lukas Bittner AU - Fariba Mostajeran AU - Frank Steinicke AU - Jürgen Gallinat AU - Simone Kühn Y1 - 2018/01/01 UR - http://biorxiv.org/content/early/2018/10/25/451245.abstract N2 - Objective This study evaluated the efficacy of FlowVR, a virtual reality (VR) game designed to improve mood and reduce feelings of depression. The aim is to contribute to the question of whether and how VR could be used for depression therapy, as research in this area is quite rare.Method 18 healthy participants (9 female; Mage = 25.9) underwent three conditions, playing FlowVR in VR with a head-mounted display, playing FlowVR on a tablet or reading a text on a tablet. For each condition, they were tested on a separate day at the same time of day within a two-week period. Before and after every condition participants completed the Becks Depression Inventory II (BDI-II), the state part of the State-Trait-Anxiety-Depression-Inventory (STADI(S)) and the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule-Expanded Form (PANAS-X).Results While the participants showed only a reduction in acute anxiety in the control and the tablet conditions, they showed improved affectivity in all variables measured in the VR condition. In addition, VR had significantly better results than the control condition in improving positive affectivity, negative affectivity and acute feelings of depression. Using a less conservative statistical approach, these significant differences could also be found between the tablet and the VR condition. There were no significant differences between the tablet and the control condition.Conclusion The results indicate that due to its immersive nature, VR can be used effectively to improve mood and temporarily reduce feelings of depression. Long-term effects of FlowVR on participants with depression must be investigated in consecutive research. ER -