Effectiveness of Virtual Reality Intervention on Anxiety and Vital Signs of Patients Before Colonoscopy: A Randomised Controlled Study.
Seda Cansu Yeniğün Akbulut, Hatice Merve Alptekin, Seher Ünver
PMID 41840460WHAT IT FOUND
Patients waiting for colonoscopy who watched a 15-minute VR forest video reported less anxiety and had lower blood pressure than controls.
The study did not show a heart rate difference between groups.
Key findings
01Anxiety fell from median 4 to 1 on the visual analog anxiety scale in the VR group, while it stayed at 4 in the control group, and the VR group was lower at the second assessment.
02The VR group had lower systolic blood pressure, diastolic blood pressure and mean arterial pressure than controls at the second assessment, but heart rate did not differ significantly between groups.
STILL TO COME
How it was doneWhat they foundWhat it means for RNs
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What it does not show
Only patients having their first colonoscopy were studied, and emergency procedures were excluded, so it does not apply to all colonoscopy patients. Patients using analgesic or anxiolytic drugs, those with visual or hearing impairment, and those with migraine, vertigo or epilepsy were excluded. The study was done in a public hospital endoscopy unit in Türkiye, so it may not fit other settings. The control group had a higher median age than the VR group, 61.11 versus 51.05 years. Anxiety was measured with a subjective visual analog line. The heart-rate result was not significant between groups, so the vital-sign effect was not uniform. The outcomes were measured only before the colonoscopy, not during or after the procedure.
Declared interests
The authors report no conflicts of interest and state they have nothing to report regarding funding.
The easy way to misread this
Do not conclude that VR lowers heart rate before colonoscopy. The between-group difference in heart rate was not significant.