Can Virtual Reality Reduce Pain and Anxiety During Blood Draw

July 10, 2021 updated by: Matthew J. Perdue, DSc, PA-C, C.R.Darnall Army Medical Center

Can Virtual Reality Reduce Patient's Pain, Improve Patient's Experience, and Reduce Procedure Related Anxiety With Venipuncture? A Randomized Control Trial

Adult patients aged 18-50 undergoing blood draw for routine lab evaluation will be randomized to a control group or experimental group to assess if the use of virtual reality reduces procedural pain (primary outcome) and procedural anxiety (secondary outcome) during venipuncture.

Study Overview

Status

Completed

Conditions

Intervention / Treatment

Detailed Description

A prospective randomized controlled trial comparing standard practice for conducting venipuncture to standard practice with the addition of Virtual Reality using the Oculus Go Head Mounted Display (HMD). The study will be performed on volunteers who are reporting to the phlebotomy lab to have venipuncture for blood draws that were previously ordered by their health care providers. Participants who were not already scheduled to undergo routine venipuncture will not be included.

When approaching the ticket stand to draw a waiting number for the lab, prospective participants will be asked by an assistant investigator located near the kiosk if they are interested in participating in the study. If the participants express interest, they will be directed to the screening station. The screening station will be set up in a private room near the lab waiting area, and participants will be screened for eligibility and educated on the benefits and risks of the study. They will also provide informed consent if they decide to participate.

All participants will be asked to fill out a self-reported data questionnaire in addition to the informed consent document to assess for inclusion and exclusion criteria discussed later in this protocol. This questionnaire will assess the participant's expected level of anxiety prior to the procedure and expected level of pain associated with the procedure by utilizing a visual analog scale (VAS). The VAS will be on a 100 millimeter line.

Once approved for participation in the study all participants will undergo a brief instructional class on how to operate the HMD and will be allowed sufficient time to become comfortable with its use. The investigators expect approximately 5-10 minutes to be required for this portion of the study. Once familiar with the use of the virtual reality headset, participants will be asked to randomly draw an envelope from a container. This envelope will contain a block and sequence number. The block and sequence number will be the subject identification and will correspond to a predetermined number set on a separate document that will determine if the participant will use the HMD during venipuncture or not. The screener will not have immediate access to the list showing which group the participant will be assigned to. One member of the study team will be present in the lab room to ensure the participant uses the virtual reality headset (or not) according to what is randomly drawn. This member of the research team will have the list showing whether or not the participant is assigned to the control arm or the experimental arm. The participants will then proceed to the specimen room to undergo venipuncture.

Venipuncture for both groups will be occur in the non-dominant arm. The reasoning for this is that the Oculus Go requires one free hand to use a controller. This will ensure that the individuals participating are able to effectively use the device. Those unable to undergo venipuncture in the nondominant arm will undergo venipuncture in the dominant arm instead and will use the Oculus Go dominant arm will undergo venipuncture in the dominant arm instead and will use the Oculus Go controller with their non-dominant hand.

Those utilizing the Oculus Go HMD will be interacting with the virtual reality game Ocean Rift. They will utilize a single controller to explore an underwater safari park. Ocean Rift has multiple environments to choose from, including coral reefs, ship wrecks, lagoons, the arctic, and prehistoric seas. Participants may interact with and and learn about different creatures to include dolphins, turtles, orcas, ray, whales, sea lions, manatees, and dinosaurs. During the game users may travel where they please and interact with what they choose. The virtual reality device is equipped with head-tracking software that allows the user to choose direction by looking around. The entire interior and exterior of the headset will be cleaned with alcohol-based wipes after each use. Alcohol will be used since it is generally well-tolerated on human skin, and since it evaporates quickly. The headset will be dried in the open air for a minimum of two minutes between each subject's use.

Those not using the virtual reality will still wear a headset that will simply be turned off. This is to ensure that any significant change noted with the virtual reality is due to the use of virtual reality itself, and not simply due to "blindfolding" the patient during the procedure.

As some patients experiencing anxiety may be tempted to move during the procedure, lab personnel will instruct participants to remain still during venipuncture. Participants will be advised that they may take breaks as needed if anxiety becomes overwhelming.

After undergoing the procedure, each participant will be asked to fill out the postprocedure questionnaire and return it to the study team member present in the lab room, who will clean the headset as the participant completes the questionnaire. This questionnaire assesses the patient's pain intensity and level of anxiety with the VAS similar to the VAS assessing pain, as well as the patient's satisfaction with the visit which will be measured utilizing a Likert scale for individual questions.

Study Type

Interventional

Enrollment (Actual)

59

Phase

  • Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

This section provides the contact details for those conducting the study, and information on where this study is being conducted.

Study Locations

  • United States
    • Texas
      • Fort Hood, Texas, United States, 76544
        • Carl R Darnall Army Medical Center

Participation Criteria

Researchers look for people who fit a certain description, called eligibility criteria. Some examples of these criteria are a person's general health condition or prior treatments.

Eligibility Criteria

Ages Eligible for Study

18 years to 50 years (ADULT)

Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Genders Eligible for Study

All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

  • Adults aged 18-50
  • Currently scheduled to undergo venipuncture

Exclusion Criteria:

  • Less than 18 years old or greater than 50 years old
  • History of motion sickness (nausea or vertigo)
  • Pregnant women
  • Reported history of blood borne disease (no request will be made for which disease participant has)
  • Use of pain medication(s) on day of study
  • Current use of medical devices, including hearing aids, pacemakers, implanted cardiac defibrillators
  • Currently experiencing headache/migraine

Study Plan

This section provides details of the study plan, including how the study is designed and what the study is measuring.

How is the study designed?

Design Details

  • Primary Purpose: SUPPORTIVE_CARE
  • Allocation: RANDOMIZED
  • Interventional Model: PARALLEL
  • Masking: SINGLE

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm
Intervention / Treatment
EXPERIMENTAL: Standard care venipuncture with additional of virtual reality
Patients undergoing blood draw while interacting with VR application Ocean Rift while wearing Oculus Go headset
Device: Oculus Go headset with Ocean Rift application
Information already included in arm description
NO_INTERVENTION: Standard care venipuncture without addition of virtual reality
Patients undergoing blood draw while wearing Oculus Go headset that is turned off

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Procedural Pain
Time Frame: 2 months
Determine if use of Oculus Go headset reduces procedural pain perception utilizing the visual analog scale, which measures pain on a linear scale from 0 to 100 millimeters, with 0 being no pain and 100 being maximum pain
2 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure
Measure Description
Time Frame
Procedural Anxiety
Time Frame: 2 months
Determine if use of Oculus Go headset reduces procedural anxiety utilizing the visual analog scale, which measures anxiety on a linear scale from 0 to 100 millimeters, with 0 being no anxiety and 100 being maximum anxiety
2 months

Collaborators and Investigators

This is where you will find people and organizations involved with this study.

Sponsor

C.R.Darnall Army Medical Center

Investigators

  • Principal Investigator: Matthew J Perdue, PA, C.R.Darnall Army Medical Center

Publications and helpful links

The person responsible for entering information about the study voluntarily provides these publications. These may be about anything related to the study.

General Publications

Helpful Links

Study record dates

These dates track the progress of study record and summary results submissions to ClinicalTrials.gov. Study records and reported results are reviewed by the National Library of Medicine (NLM) to make sure they meet specific quality control standards before being posted on the public website.

Study Major Dates

Study Start (ACTUAL)

June 10, 2020

Primary Completion (ACTUAL)

July 9, 2020

Study Completion (ACTUAL)

July 9, 2020

Study Registration Dates

First Submitted

June 22, 2020

First Submitted That Met QC Criteria

June 25, 2020

First Posted (ACTUAL)

June 26, 2020

Study Record Updates

Last Update Posted (ACTUAL)

July 13, 2021

Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria

July 10, 2021

Last Verified

July 1, 2021

More Information

Terms related to this study

Keywords

Additional Relevant MeSH Terms

Other Study ID Numbers

  • 921118

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?

NO

Drug and device information, study documents

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product

No

Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product

Yes

This information was retrieved directly from the website clinicaltrials.gov without any changes. If you have any requests to change, remove or update your study details, please contact register@clinicaltrials.gov. As soon as a change is implemented on clinicaltrials.gov, this will be updated automatically on our website as well.

Clinical Trials on Procedural Pain

Clinical Trials on Oculus Go headset with Ocean Rift application

Search Similar Trials

Sponsors and Collaborators

Medical Conditions

Drug Interventions

CROs by country

CROs in Belarus

Conditions

Rare Diseases

Drug Interventions

Dietary Supplements

Sponsor/Collaborators

Locations

Subscribe