Effect of using virtual reality on fatigue and mental workload as key determinants of perceived stress in neonatal intensive care staff: A randomized controlled trial feasibility study and protocol

Background: Health care professionals (HCPs) in neonatal intensive care units (NICUs) are prone to significant stress, leading to deleterious mental health effects. Recently, some studies have explored virtual reality (VR) immersion experience to mitigate these risks. However, these studies vary in clinical settings, design and mental health parameters. Aim: To report on the safety and feasibility of VR immersion experience in busy tertiary NICU HCPs. Study Design: Ten eligible NICU HCPs without photosensitive epilepsy or cardiopulmonary disease participated. Participants underwent VR immersion (intervention arm; maximum of 15 min/session and 1 session/shift) during breaktimes in three consecutive shifts. They underwent a washout period, after which they completed 3 sessions as routine breaks (control arm) without VR experience. They completed pre–post break stress and survey questionnaires in both arms. Results: Analyses comprised data from 28 VR immersion and 27 control arm sessions (nine participants completed three sessions in both arms and one participant completed one session in intervention arm only). All VR immersion sessions were ‘really liked’ (60.7%) or ‘liked’ (39.3%). As far as the usage of VR devices were concerned, majority were deemed to be ‘really easy’ (25%) or ‘easy’ (57.14%). Quality of VR environments were reported to be ‘Excellent’ (28.6%) or ‘good’ (60.71%) in majority of sessions. Experience of chosen VR environments were ‘really liked’ (46.42%) or ‘liked’ (50%). Most importantly, the impact of VR experience on enhancing the break was deemed to be ‘Yes, a lot’ (46.42%) or ‘Yes, a bit’ (39.28%) in most sessions. Participants reported ‘very minor’ side effects in three VR sessions, none requiring any therapeutic interventions. Rest of the sessions reported ‘no’ side effects. Conclusions: VR immersion experience is safe and feasible in busy HCPs in a tertiary NICU. Future recommendations would be to compare VR immersion experience with other well-being measures of staff. Relevance to Clinical Practice: Virtual reality immersion experience could be utilized for stress reduction in NICU HCPs.