Adapting Virtual Reality‐Based Mental Health Interventions for Equitable Global Use: Proof of Concept

Le résumé fourni par la source

Among low and middle-income countries (LMICs), mental health challenges are compounded by poverty and limited access to mental health services, particularly among older adults (1-3).There is a need for effective and innovative interventions tailored to these populations.Mindfulness interventions can be applied trans-diagnostically and have been shown as feasible and effective in LMICs (4).However, mindfulness can be challenging to engage with, especially at the start of the practice (5).Notably, minoritized and disadvantaged populations tend to engage less in mindfulness (6), and older adults may also have difficulty with these interventions (7).One approach to improving the effectiveness of mindfulness among older adults may be by using virtual reality (VR).VR has been shown to facilitate a greater state of mindfulness when compared to audio-only mindfulness interventions (8).Low-cost VR hardware and expanding content availability may facilitate their implementation to older adults in LMICs.In this study, we aimed to demonstrate whether a manualized low-cost VR mindfulness intervention is feasible, tolerable, and effective among older adults with and without mild cognitive impairment (MCI) in Quito, Ecuador.This feasibility study has significant implications for determining the scalability of mindfulness-based interventions as well as for demonstrating how advanced technologies like VR can be made much more accessible.

Ce résumé expose les affirmations des auteurs. BNTIC ne l’interprète pas comme une validation indépendante des résultats.