VR-Counseling to Reduce Public Speaking Anxiety

Starting soon · Not applicable

Conditions studied: Anxiety and Distress, Anxiety, Anxiety Disease, Public Speaking Anxiety

In brief

Public Speaking Anxiety (PSA) is a common manifestation of social anxiety among university students that can negatively impact academic performance and psychological well-being. Virtual Reality (VR) based interventions combined with Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT) represent a promising approach to address PSA by enabling controlled, gradual exposure to feared social situations through realistic simulations of audiences and settings. This randomized controlled trial will evaluate whether integrating VR sessions into standard psychological counseling provided by the University Psychological Counseling Service (UPCS) improves anxiety and PSA outcomes in university students compared with counseling alone. Participants will be randomized to one of two groups: (1) a control group receiving standard psychological counseling intervention, or (2) an experimental group receiving psychological counseling supplemented with VR interventions delivered via immersive 360° video scenarios. The VR-based intervention includes a VR-Exposure and Response Prevention (ERP) module offering graded exposure to anxiety-provoking public speaking contexts, and a VR-Acceptance and Commitment Training (ACT) module aimed at enhancing mindfulness and psychological flexibility through guided experiential exercises. Psychological outcomes and physiological responses recorded during sessions will be analyzed to compare the effectiveness of VR-integrated counseling versus standard counseling alone. This study addresses the limited evidence on CBT combined with 360° video-based VR exposure for PSA in university students and introduces a novel VR-based ERP and ACT protocol tailored to a university counseling setting.

Key facts

Study ID
NCT07351409
Run by
University of Calabria
People needed
72
Starts
2026-03-01
Expected to finish
2026-12-31
Last updated by the study team
2026-01-20

Who can join

Age: 18 and older, up to 40. Sex: any. Healthy volunteers: not accepted.

Where it is running

Full record on ClinicalTrials.gov

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