Background

Physical illnesses such as hypertension, diabetes, and cardiovascular diseases are much more common in patients with schizophrenia compared to general population. Besides the rate of schizophrenia patients benefiting from general health services have been quite low. These physical illnesses don’t only cause bad prognosis but also decrease the quality of life and increase the risk of early death. Many schizophrenia studies in recent years have found that patients with schizophrenia have died very early compared to normal population. The most important reasons of developing physical illnesses in schizophrenia are decrease in physical activity, nutrition problems, weight gain, smoking cigarettes, alcohol and substance abuse, unhealthy lifestyles.

Emerging new technologies may lead to the discovery of new treatment techniques in psychiatric disorders and related problems. Virtual reality (VR) as one of these new technologies, is composed of imitated real environments on computers. Most of virtual reality environments are about visual experiences by means of computer screen. Virtual reality is used for presenting reality experience and it is a 3D computer program of existing or non-existing environments. Although virtual reality in treatment of schizophrenia is new to the science, it has promising results to improve positive symptoms of schizophrenia. Also, VR technology may be useful to improve psychosocial functioning among the patients with schizophrenia. The aim of this study is to investigate the effect of VR physical health program on physical health parameters such as nutrition, psychomotor activity, smoking cigarettes and lifestyle.

Methods

Patients who met DSM-V schizophrenia diagnostic criteria from Dokuz Eylül University School of Medicine, Schizophrenia and Psychosis Outpatient Clinic were included into the study. In this study, a virtual reality laboratory has been established and physical health improvement program by using virtual reality technology with real life experiences has been developed for patients with schizophrenia.

Results

None of the patients reported motion sickness due to exposure to real environment during or after immersive process of VR. There were significant changes regarding the physical health parameters.

Discussion

VR physical health program may be useful to improve physical health-related problems such as obesity, psychomotor inactivity and smoking cigarettes.