Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, attention bias and virtual reality

<p>This thesis comprises a Systematic Review of the Acceptability and Drop-Out Rates of Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder, and an empirical study on The Role of Pre-Existing Assumptions and Cognitive Flexibility in the Development of Post-Trauma Cognitive Processes – An Analogue Study. </p><p>The Systematic Review of 28 studies of varying study designs comprised a majority of military populations, found Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy for Posttraumatic Stress Disorder (PTSD) to be an acceptable and tolerable treatment method to most.

The weighted mean of drop-out from these studies at 13.03% is comparatively slightly lower than reports of attrition in traditional PTSD therapies. </p><p>The empirical study sought to provide experimental evidence to Ehlers and Clark's (2000) model of PTSD, investigating attentional biases using eye-tracking equipment following exposure to an analogue trauma film paradigm using Virtual Reality, alongside measures of cognitive processing, pre-existing assumptions, cognitive flexibility, anxiety, and memory.