Effectiveness of The Virtual Reality Package on Social panic and social lectures

Introduction: Fear of emergence in society and social discourse is one of the most common types of social fears and this disorder is recognized as a multifaceted disorder. Therefore, the present study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of virtual reality package on social panic and social lectures. Methods: This study was a quasi-experimental study with a pretest-posttest design and a two-month follow-up with a control group. The statistical population of the present study consisted of managers of the IT department in Tehran in 2020, from which 30 people were selected by convenience sampling and randomly divided into two groups of experimental (15 people) and control (15 people). The experimental group underwent a virtual reality treatment protocol for 12 sessions (15 minutes each session). But no intervention was done for the control group. Both groups responded to Conner et al.'s (2000) list of social phobias at different stages. Analysis of variance mixed with repeated measures and Bonferroni post hoc tests using SPSS software version 23 were used to analyze the data. Results: The results showed that the virtual reality package was able to fear (F = 23.08; P <0.001), avoidance (F = 13.590; P <0.001), physiological discomfort (F = 23.88; 001 P <0.05) and social phobia in general (F = 67.54; P <0.001) significantly improved and the results were lasting in the follow-up period (P <0.05). Conclusions: The results showed the effectiveness of virtual reality therapy protocol in reducing social phobia and social speech symptoms. Therefore, this method can be used as a new treatment method to treat social phobia and other similar disorders.