VR-assisted Curriculum on Depression for Stigma Reduction

Behavior Clinical Trial

Official title:

Reducing Stigma Against Depression: Designing and Implementing a VR-assisted Curriculum to Reduce Students' Perceptions of Patients With Depression

Clinical Trial Details — Status: Recruiting

Administrative data

• NCT number: NCT03912597
• Other study ID #: S-18-208
• Status: Recruiting
• Phase: N/A
• Start date: September 19, 2018
• Est. completion date: April 20, 2019

Study information

• Verified date: April 2019
• Source: Yale-NUS College
• Contact: Jean Liu, PhD
• Phone: 66013694
• Email: jeanliu[@]yale-nus.edu.sg
• Is FDA regulated: No
• Study type: Interventional

Clinical Trial Summary

Two randomised controlled trials will be conducted to evaluate a virtual reality (VR) simulation designed to reduce stigma against depression. Qualitative interviews will also be carried out to evaluate the VR simulation.

Description:

The investigators examine the impact of a VR-assisted curriculum on stigma reduction towards individuals with depression. This is done through the development and evaluation of a VR-assisted curriculum that promotes stigma reduction towards depression among tertiary-aged students. Collection of data will provide insights about the effectiveness of VR's immersive quality in enhancing stigma reduction skills through measures of attitudes, beliefs and knowledge about depression. In the first study, VR is compared with traditional pamphlets in an information sharing booth about depression. In the second study, participants attend a 30-min session where they undergo an educational curriculum with either a VR or standard video as adjunctive tools.

Recruitment information / eligibility

• Status: Recruiting
• Enrollment: 200
• Est. completion date: April 20, 2019
• Est. primary completion date: April 20, 2019
• Accepts healthy volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers
• Gender: All
• Age group: 18 Years to 26 Years

Eligibility

Inclusion Criteria:

• Tertiary students from NUS and Yale-NUS only

Exclusion Criteria:

• History of medical or psychiatric disorder; History of motion sickness, dizziness or epilepsy; (For reliability and safety of heart-rate monitoring) Tattoos near the wrist and/or nickel or acrylate allergies

Related Conditions & MeSH terms

• Behavior
• Control
• Depression

Intervention

Device:
• Virtual Reality
The 4-minute virtual reality video depicts a day in a life of a student with depression. The one-take video, filmed with a 360° camera, is designed to provide users with an immersive experience that simulates what it feels like to have depression. The user interface consisted of a Google Cardboard VR headset attached to a smartphone.
• Brochure
Participants read an informational brochure about depression depicting standard information about depression, including symptoms and information on how to support someone with depression.
• Standard Video Control
The 4-minute standard video depicts a similar storyline as was shown in the VR video. The standard video is filmed from a third-party perspective with multiple takes edited into a final video, following the standard filming style of these videos. The standard video will be viewed from a laptop with headphones attached.

Locations

Country	Name	City	State
Singapore	Yale-NUS College	Singapore

Sponsors (1)

Lead Sponsor	Collaborator
Yale-NUS College

Country where clinical trial is conducted

Singapore, 

Outcome

Type	Measure	Description	Time frame	Safety issue
Primary	Stigmatising beliefs towards depression	The extent of agreement with negative beliefs and stereotypes about depression will be adapted from the 10-item agreement sub-scale of the Self-Stigma of Mental Illness Scale.	2 minutes
Primary	Stigmatising attitudes towards depression	Stigmatising attitudes refer to the opinions that one has towards persons with depression, and how they would interact with these group of people. This will be measured using an adapted version of the Attribution Questionnaire-27.	5 minutes
Primary	Knowledge about depression	A Depression Literacy measure will be used to assess participants' understanding and knowledge of depression.	2 minutes
Primary	Video Enjoyment	In the VR condition, enjoyment of the VR simulation will be assessed through five items on a video enjoyment questionnaire created by the researchers, that includes items such as "I found the video interesting" and "The video made me more interested in the topic" on a visual analog scale. The scale was anchored between 0 indicating "Strongly Disagree" to 10 indicating "Strongly Agree".	1 minute
Primary	Video Presence	Presence felt in the VR simulation will be assessed through four items on a video presence questionnaire, that includes items such as "How aware were you of events happening in your actual surroundings outside of the video?" and "How strong was your sense of 'being there' in the video environment?" on a visual analog scale. The questions were adapted from the original Presence Questionnaire by Witmer and Singer (1998) that outlined four sub-factors of control, sensory, distraction and realism; items in our questionnaire were carefully selected to represent all of the factors. The scale ranged from 0 indicating "Not At All" to 10 indicating "Very Much So".	1 minute
Secondary	Affect (PANAS)	Participants' mood will be assessed using the Positive and Negative Affect Scale (PANAS) as a secondary measure of user experience with the respective videos. The PANAS consists of two 10-item subscales assessing positive and negative affect, and is rated on a 5-point scale ranging from 1 representing "Very Slightly or Not at All" to 5 representing "Extremely".	3 minutes
Secondary	Heart rate live tracking	Changes in heart rate, assessed live during the video viewing duration, will be measured as a physiological measure of user experience.	4 minutes
Secondary	Qualitative feedback about VR video	Participants will be invited to give feedback on their VR experience. Questions in the qualitative interview will address (1) their thoughts on mental health awareness amongst the public, (2) their experience watching the VR simulation and (3) reasons for stopping, or not, at similar mental health booths with VR simulations in the future.	10 minutes