{"doi":"10.1007/s10055-024-00956-7","title":"Therapist perspectives on telehealth-based virtual reality exposure therapy","abstract":"Virtual reality (VR) can enhance mental health care. In particular, the effectiveness of VR-based exposure therapy (VRET) has been well-demonstrated for treatment of anxiety disorders. However, most applications of VRET remain localized to clinic spaces. We aimed to explore mental health therapists' perceptions of telehealth-based VRET (tele-VRET) by conducting semi-structured, qualitative interviews with 18 telemental health therapists between October and December 2022. Interview topics included telehealth experiences, exposure therapy over telehealth, previous experiences with VR, and perspectives on tele-VRET. Therapists described how telehealth reduced barriers (88.9%, 16/18), enhanced therapy (61.1%, 11/18), and improved access to clients (38.9%, 7/18), but entailed problems with technology (61.1%, 11/18), uncontrolled settings (55.6%, 10/18), and communication difficulties (50%, 9/18). Therapists adapted exposure therapy to telehealth by using online resources (66.7%, 12/18), preparing client expectations (55.6%, 10/18), and adjusting workflows (27.8%, 5/18). Most therapists had used VR before (72.2%, 13/18) and had positive impressions of VR (55.6%, 10/18), but none had used VR clinically. In response to tele-VRET, therapists requested interactive session activities (77.8%, 14/18) and customizable interventions components (55.6%, 10/18). Concerns about tele-VRET included risks with certain clients (77.8%, 14/18), costs (50%, 9/18), side effects and privacy (22.2%, 4/18), and inappropriateness for specific forms of exposure therapy (16.7%, 3/18). These results reveal how combining telehealth and VRET may expand therapeutic options for mental healthcare providers and can help inform collaborative development of immersive health technologies.","journal":"Virtual Reality","year":2024,"id":424089,"datarank":0.47670807455219194,"base_score":3.1780538303479458,"endowment":3.1780538303479458,"self_citation_contribution":0.47670807455219194,"citation_network_contribution":0.0,"self_endowment_contribution":0.47670807455219194,"citer_contribution":0.0,"corpus_percentile":null,"corpus_rank":null,"citation_count":23,"citer_count":0,"citers_with_citation_signal":0,"citers_with_endowment":0,"datacite_reuse_total":0,"is_dataset":false,"is_dataset_confidence":0.9559,"is_data_producer":false,"deposit_databanks":null,"is_oa":true,"file_count":0,"downloads":0,"has_version_chain":false,"published_date":"2024-01-01","fair_score":null,"fair_percentile":null,"algorithm_id":"datarank_citation_only_1hop_v6","ranking_scope":"data_only","authors":[{"id":1140653,"name":"Julia Ivanova","orcid":"0000-0002-5852-200X","position":1,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":892025,"name":"Hiral Soni","orcid":"0000-0002-2054-3737","position":2,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":892024,"name":"Hattie Wilczewski","orcid":"0000-0002-3034-0087","position":3,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":693469,"name":"Janelle Barrera","orcid":"0000-0002-1010-6365","position":4,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":437720,"name":"Mollie Cummins","orcid":"0000-0001-7078-8479","position":5,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":693468,"name":"Brandon M. Welch","orcid":"0000-0002-2214-9282","position":6,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":458381,"name":"Brian E. Bunnell","orcid":"0000-0002-4964-0688","position":7,"is_corresponding":false},{"id":297256,"name":"Triton Ong","orcid":"0000-0002-2512-2026","position":0,"is_corresponding":true}],"reference_count":65,"raw_metadata":{"citation_network_status":"fetched"},"created_at":"2026-07-19T01:58:07.191194Z","pmid":"39238767","pmcid":null,"fwci":null,"citation_percentile":null,"influential_citations":0,"oa_status":null,"license":null,"views":0,"total_file_size_bytes":0,"version_count":0,"fair_f":null,"fair_a":null,"fair_i":null,"fair_r":null,"fair_zscore":null,"fair_rationale":null,"fair_model":null,"fair_agent_version":null,"fair_fulltext_source":null,"fair_has_llm":null,"fair_computed_at":null,"clinical_trials":[],"software_tools":[],"db_accessions":[],"linked_datasets":[],"topics":[]}