Efficacy of a Gamified Augmented Reality Exposure-based Application in Subjects With Fear of Spiders (GARET2019)

Prof. Dominique de Quervain, MD

Status: Completed

Conditions: Fear of Spiders

Treatments: Other: AR app

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT04162509

2018-00432

Details and patient eligibility

About

Investigation of the efficacy of a gamified augmented reality exposure app in individual with fear of spiders.

Full description

The study will be conducted as a randomized controlled between subject trial. The study consists of two visits and a home training for one group. 60 participants between 18 and 40 years with clinical or subclinical fear of spiders will take part in the study.

All assessments of outcome will be conducted on one visit for each participant, including an in vivo BAT. The experimental group will participate in a home training with the app, spanning over two weeks (6x30-minutes sessions), whereas the control group will not receive any treatment (untreated comparison group).

Six weeks after the first visit all participants undergo the assessments of outcome, including a second in vivo BAT. The BAT will take place 4 weeks after completion of the home training. This design allows a direct comparison and therefore an estimation of the efficacy of the gamified AR exposure therapy.

Enrollment: 60 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 40 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Fear of spiders
• BAT score before exposure between 1-8
• Physically healthy
• Fluent in German

Exclusion criteria

• BDI-II sumscore >=20 and/or item 9 >=1
• Concurrent psychotherapy or pharmacotherapy
• Previous exposure-based therapy for spider phobia
• Parallel participation in another study
• Chronic medication intake (except oral contraceptives)
• Medication intake before visits (less than 24h)
• Alcohol intake before visits (less than 12 h)
• Cannabis or other psychoactive substances (including benzodiazepines) intake before visits (less than 5 days)
• For women: Current pregnancy

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: Single Blind

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60 participants in 2 patient groups

Exposure

Experimental group

Description:

The experimental intervention in the experimental group consists of six 30-minutes AR exposures as home training (total duration in AR: 3 hours) within two weeks.

Treatment:

Other: AR app

Control

No Intervention group

Description:

The control group will not receive any active treatment (untreated comparison group).