Eliciting Affect in Teens in a Virtual World (Project AVATAR)
Condition: HIV Infections
MeSH terms: HIV Infections
Study type: Interventional
Phase: Phase 1/Phase 2

Summary: 
      The purpose of this study is to determine whether immersive virtual reality technology is an
      effective intervention tool for HIV Prevention with adolescents.
    

Detailed description: 
      The project will examine the use of immersive virtual reality technology as an intervention
      tool for HIV Prevention with adolescents. Adolescents are at risk for contracting HIV while
      affect dysregulation is common among adolescents. Research has demonstrated connections
      between poor affect management abilities and risky sexual behavior among adolescents. This
      research suggests that the ability to regulate one's emotions is key to avoiding risk
      behaviors and that adolescents are at greater risk for poor affect management skills.
      Fortunately, these skills can be taught via teaching and modeling, making them an excellent
      target for intervention, which has previously been approached through role-playing. Immersive
      virtual reality offers many advantages over group based role-plays, used in HIV prevention
      interventions for adolescents, in its ability to simulate real-world environments and enhance
      the impact of HIV prevention interventions. Immersive virtual reality is a promising
      technology for giving teens the opportunity to experientially practice using effective affect
      regulation skills in a highly realistic, context specific virtual environment. Additional
      benefits of this technology will likely be increased engagement and retention in HIV
      prevention interventions among young adolescents. The overall aims of Phase I and Phase II of
      this project are to develop, refine, and evaluate virtual reality environments for
      adolescents targeting affect management. In Phase I, the research team developed and refined
      an immersive virtual environment that elicited affect in a high-risk situation. The final
      immersive virtual reality environments (completed in Phase II) can be used by health
      promotion interventionists in conjunction with an HIV prevention intervention manual as a
      means to elicit affect and provide adolescents with a "real world" environment in which to
      practice emotion regulation skills related to substance use and HIV prevention. These aims
      will be achieved through the collaboration of researchers at Rhode Island Hospital/Brown and
      Virtually Better, Inc. a small business that specializes in creating immersive virtual
      reality environments for treatment, education, and training purposes. This tool will
      represent a significant advance in the way in which affect regulation skills are practiced
      and honed, currently achieved via role plays or imaginal exposure, by increasing the salience
      of cues used to elicit affect, thus making it highly marketable to interventionists, schools,
      and mental health clinicians.
    

Intervention name(s): Virtual Reality; Health Promotion
Intervention type(s): Behavioral; Behavioral
Intervention description(s): 4-session group intervention including affect management training as well as sexual health skills training to prevent the transmission of HIV. Group will practice skills using 3-D goggles for some activities.; 4-session group intervention including affect management training as well as sexual health skills training to prevent the transmission of HIV. Group will practice skills using traditional role-plays for some activities.
Other intervention name(s): IVRE intervention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Prevention
Keywords: Adolescent Risk Behavior; Emotion Regulation; Health Promotion; Intervention; Mental Health