Symposia
Telehealth/m-Health
Giuseppe Riva, Ph.D.
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Milan, Lombardia, Italy
Daniele Di Lernia, PhD
Researcher
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Cosimo Tuena, PhD
Researcher
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Luca Bernardelli, PhD
CEO
become SRL
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Jose Gutiérrez Maldonado, PhD
Professor
Universitat de Barcelona
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Marta Ferrer Garcia, PhD
professor
Universitat de Barcelona
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Bruno Porras-Garcia, PhD
Postdoctoral researcher
Universitat de Barcelona
Barcelona, Catalonia, Spain
Marie Meyer, MA
Researcher
Private University of Applied Sciences
Göttingen, Niedersachsen, Germany
Youssef Shiban, PhD
professor
Private University of Applied Sciences
Göttingen, Niedersachsen, Germany
Gianluca Castelnuovo, PhD
Associate Professor
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Francesco Pagnini, PhD
Full Professor
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Elisa Pedroli, PhD
Researcher
IRCCS Istituto Auxologico Italiano
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Francesca Sforza, PhD
researcher
become SRL
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Alex Clementi, MA
Researcher
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Maria Sansoni, BA
researcher
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Fabrizia Mantovani, PhD
professor
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Brenda K. Wiederhold, PhD
Professor
Virtual Reality & Digital Therapeutics
San Diego, California
Silvia Serino, PhD
professor
Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore
Milano, Lombardia, Italy
Several studies are suggesting that the COVID-19 pandemic has adverse psychological consequences in terms of an increase in anxiety, depression, and post-traumatic stress symptoms among specific groups in the population, such as COVID-19 survivors, health professionals, and vulnerable populations. These emerging mental health issues, even present among the general population, require effective, innovative psychological interventions. In this scenario, digital devices, such as Virtual Reality (VR) or mobile platforms, may play an important role in supporting the delivery of affordable and scalable self-help interventions to a large portion of population considering the logistic and economic barriers that can limit the access to traditional mental health providers.
The primary aim of the present study was to investigate the efficacy of a self-help virtual therapeutic experience (COVID Feel Good – www.covidfeelgood.com), currently available in 13 in thirteen different languages - English, Spanish, French, Brazilian/Portuguese, German, Italian, Turkish, Japanese, Korean, Farsi, Armenian, Romanian and Catalan - for reducing the psychological burden experienced during the COVID-19 lockdown across different countries. The protocol consists of watching a 10-minute three hundred and sixty–degree (360°) video, titled “The Secret Garden”, each day for one week. The video immerses participants in a natural environment to promote relaxation and self-reflection, and the intervention is combined with daily social exercises with targeted goals that are designed to be experienced with another person. For this purpose, we focused on participants recruited from June 2020 to May 2021 in the context of a European multicenter project including four university/academic sites. Primary outcome measures were depression, anxiety and stress symptoms, perceived stress levels and hopelessness. Secondary outcomes were the experienced social connectedness and the level of fear experienced during the COVID-19 pandemic. We found that COVID Feel Good intervention was associated a decrease in the perceived general distress and with an increase the perceived social connection. Globally findings suggest the efficacy of the proposed protocol and contribute the growing literature supporting the use of digital psychological interventions to reduce the psychological stress among general population during the COVID-19 crisis.