Virtual Reality Treatment for Public Speaking Anxiety in Students. Advancements and Results in Personalized Medicine

Abstract

Public speaking anxiety (PSA) is a common phobia in the student population. Traditionally, exposure therapy has been used as a treatment. However, the use of virtual reality (VR) is increasingly common to treat PSA. The purpose of this paper was to analyze the published scientific literature on VR as a treatment for PSA in students. The articles indexed in two databases (Web of Science and Scopus) were analyzed, with a time period from the beginning of the first publications until 2019 included. The systematic literature review was based on fixed inclusion and exclusion criteria. A total of 13 studies were identified which included 481 students. The results collected indicate that the duration of treatments to have positive effects was at least one week, where the number of sessions was between one and twelve. Furthermore, most VR treatments reported positive effects. Finally, this study showed evidence that VR treatment for PSA is effective while being less invasive than in vivo exposure.