Virtual Reality for Vocational Recovery (VR4VR)

Enhancing Vocational Support With a Virtual Reality Vocational Skills Building Application: Piloting VR4VR

Unemployment is higher among young people who experience mental ill-health compared to the general population. This can have a lasting impact on young people, many of whom are highly motivated to gain employment and education. There are many challenges to seeking, gaining, and maintaining employment for young people. To address these challenges and help young people meet their employment and education goals, investigators have developed a VR intervention to support vocational skill building. The aim of the current study is to evaluate the feasibility, acceptability, and safety, of the Virtual Reality for Vocational Recovery (VR4VR) intervention. A small group of vocational specialists will support up to 20 young people with their vocational outcomes using VR4VR over a 3-6week period. Both young people and specialists will complete questionnaires related to acceptability of the intervention, including qualitative interviews. Data on feasibility and safety will also be collected. Results will inform whether VR is feasible, acceptable, and safe to support vocational outcomes within vocational services that support young people with mental health difficulties, potentially supporting further intervention development and larger trials.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Mental Health Disorder
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Virtual reality for vocational recovery

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 20
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Jennifer M Nicholas, PhD; Phone Number: +61399669235; Email: jennifer.nicholas@orygen.org.au
• Study Contact Backup: Name: James Whiting; Phone Number: +61399669173; Email: james.whiting@orygen.org.au

Study Locations

• Australia
  • New South Wales
    • Orange, New South Wales, Australia, 2800
      • Veritas House
      • Contact: Haylee Lepaio; Phone Number: +61437 415 906; Email: Haylee.Lepaio@veritashouse.org.au
  • Victoria
    • Melbourne, Victoria, Australia, 3052
      • Orygen Specialist Services
      • Contact: Patrik Shah; Phone Number: +61460853046; Email: pratik.shah@orygen.org.au
  • Western Australia
    • Perth, Western Australia, Australia, 6056
      • Youth Focus Burswood
      • Contact: Katie Llewell; Phone Number: +618 9274 8860; Email: Katie.Llewell@headspacemidland.com.au

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

A young person participant will be considered eligible for inclusion in this study if:

1. They are aged 18-25 seeking vocational support at participating vocational support programs
2. Have a named care-coordinator or key worker
3. Comfortable using a VR headset
4. Consent to recording of interview for transcription

Exclusion Criteria:

1. They lack fluency in English (spoken and written), since this is required to understand participate in the VR intervention;
2. They have a known diagnosis of a moderate intellectual disability, due to some of the content delivered during the intervention requiring a certain level of understanding.
3. As the therapy uses audio and visual means of communication, participants with impairments so severe that they cannot hear instructions, or are unable to see the virtual reality environments, cannot participate. Mild impairments can be accommodated, as sound volume can be turned up, and the Meta Quest headband is used to comfortably use glasses with the headset.

A vocational specialist or staff participant will be considered eligible for inclusion in this study if:

1. Presently work within a vocational program and hold a caseload of young people
2. Have worked with at least 5 young people within a vocational intervention.
3. Sufficient command of the English language
4. Consent to audio recording of interview

No exclusion criteria

A staff participant will be considered eligible for inclusion in this study if:

1. Presently work within a role supporting a vocational program
2. Sufficient command of the English language
3. Consent to audio recording of interview

No exclusion criteria

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: N/A
• Interventional Model: Single Group Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

1

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm

Intervention / Treatment

Experimental: Virtual reality for vocational recovery; Within standard vocational care, young people will receive a three-session (optional 4th) virtual reality training intervention to address key challenges associated with educational and employment attainment and maintenance. Session 1: Approaching potential employers Session 2: Asking for reasonable adjustments Session 3: Managing customers

Behavioral: Virtual reality for vocational recovery; Intervention is an immersive virtual reality (VR) intervention, delivered through a VR headset, supported by a trained vocational specialist. Intervention content was co-designed with young people with mental health and vocational challenges, and vocational specialists with experiencing supporting this population. Content was guided by goals of vocational programs, including Individual Placement and Support.; Other Names: VR4VR

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Feasibility - recruitment rates	Rates of recruitment for the study (young people and vocational and service staff) based on an audit of study enrolment	6 months post intervention commencement
Acceptability	Acceptability as measured by the Theoretical Framework of Acceptability Measure delivered to young people and vocational specialists. Total mean score across the 7 TFA items will be reported, on a scale of 1 to 5, with 5 indicating greater acceptability.	6 weeks post intervention commencement
Safety - adverse events	The number of serious adverse events specifically related to the intervention or trial	6 weeks post intervention commencement
Feasibility - consent rates	Rates of consent for the study (young people and vocational and service staff) based on an audit of consent logs	6 months post intervention commencement

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Feasibility - attendance rates of assessments and sessions	Via audit of attendance logs	6 weeks post intervention commencement
Feasibility - delivery of VR4VR	Proportion of trained vocational specialists who use the intervention during the trial period	6 months post intervention commencement
Feasibility - VR utilisation	Proportion of sessions within the intervention period in which VR was used within intervention sessions.	6 months post intervention commencement
Acceptability - cybersickness	Cybersickness as measured by the Simulator Sickness Questionnaire. 16 items across three domains, nausea, Oculomotor and disorientation are summed to produce a total score. Items are scored on a scale from 0 to 3, with a higher score indicating greater cybersickness symptoms.	6 weeks post intervention commencement
Acceptability - VR presence	Sense of 'being there' within the VR environment measured using the Igroup Presence Questionnaire. Total score is calculated by summing all items. Items are rated on a scale of -3 to 3, with a higher scoring indicating greater sense of presence.	6 weeks post intervention commencement
Effectiveness - Social and occupational functioning	Young person functioning measured by the single item social and occupational functioning scale, ranging from 0 to 100, with lower scores indicating poorer functioning.	6 weeks post intervention commencement
Effectiveness - Occupational self-efficacy	Young person self-efficacy around employment measured by occupational self-efficacy scale. Items rated on a scale tanging from 1 to 6, with higher vales reflecting higher occupational self-efficacy.	6 weeks post intervention commencement
Effectiveness - General self-efficacy	Young person self-efficacy using the general self-efficacy scale, to assess an individual's perceived generalised capabilities to respond to a variety of challenges and situations. Scores range from 1-4 with highest scores indicating higher self-efficacy. The total score is calculated by finding the sum of the all items.	6 weeks post intervention commencement
Feasibility - intervention implementation	Feasibility of Implementation Measure (completed by service leads and clinicians)	up to 6 months post intervention commencement
Vocational specialist confidence and competence	Purpose-built scale (no title or acronym) developed specifically for the current study capturing self-report vocational specialist confidence and competence using VR for vocational support. The scale is 8 items, scored of a scale of 1 to 4. Higher score indicates a greater degree of competence with VR4VR.	Immediately post-training
Implementation - perceived barriers and enablers to use in practice	Assessed through qualitative analysis of supervision meeting minutes with vocational specialists	Through study completion an average of 6 months
Implementation - perceived barriers and enablers to use in practice	Assessed through qualitative analysis of research meeting minutes	Through study completion an average of 6 months
Implementation - perceived barriers and enablers to use in practice	Assessed through qualitative analysis of post-intervention interviews focusing on participants' experiences of using the VR4VR intervention during vocational support.	Through study completion an average of 6 months
Feasibility - fidelity	Proportion of VR4VR sessions that are delivered per-protocol, assessed by the timing of sessions.	6 months post intervention commencement

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Orygen
• Collaborators: University of Melbourne; TAL Community Foundation
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Jennifer Nicholas, PhD, University of Melbourne

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): August 1, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2025
• Study Completion (Estimated): December 1, 2025

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 8, 2025
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 6, 2025
• First Posted (Actual): August 11, 2025

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): August 11, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: August 6, 2025
• Last Verified: August 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders
• Other Study ID Numbers: ORY-P05-24-31

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO
• IPD Plan Description: Unable to share individual participant data due to restrictions from ethics approval and small exploratory nature of the current trial.

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No
• product manufactured in and exported from the U.S.: No