Efficacy of virtual reality exposure therapy in reducing anxiety symptoms in Iranian individuals with flying phobia

Objective: Virtual reality exposure has recently emerged as an innovative tool for exposure therapy in the treatment of fear of flying. Fear of flying, a key component of which is anxiety, often remains uncured if no intervention procedures are employed. Not to point to the fact that about 10 to 25 percent of all the individuals experience anxiety and ‌that causes the individual entirely to avoid travelling by air. The aim of the present study was to evaluate the efficacy of virtual reality exposure therapy (VRET) to reduce anxiety stemming from the fear of flying,

Method: our method wasby utilizing the experimental pre-post test design with the control group. The recruitment of participants took place among the referring clients to Tehran’s Aerospace Research Institute directed to which, from different counseling centers and airports. Forty individuals suffering from flying phobia constituted the statistical population among which 20 who met the inclusion criteria were selected as participants. They were then, randomly separated into two intervention (nine-female, one-male) and one control (10-female) groups. Intervention group participants were subject to 10 treatment sessions individually, through five weeks each lasting for 20 minutes. The Flight Anxiety Situations questionnaire was provided previous to and subsequent to the intervention to both experimental groups. Gathered data were analyzed employing the non parametric Mann-Whitney and Friedman test.

Results: The Flight Anxiety Situations questionnaire comprises of four subscales including constant anxiety, situation-specific anxiety, complex anxiety and short-term anxiety. Non parametric analysis results indicated the significance of difference in average anxiety scores between the four subscales and average anxiety values of the three intervention courses of pretest, posttest and follow up, too.p < 0.05).

Discussion and conclusion: Given the findings in this investigation, the efficacy of VRET for flying phobia is inferred. Therefore, considering the useful and durable efficacy of VRET in such a short period of time in reducing anxiety, VRET as a novel therapeutic approach is an asset for further research and development.