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Education About Hallucinations Using an Internet Virtual Reality System: A Qualitative Survey

Received January 5, 2006; revised April 4, 2006; accepted May 1, 2006. Drs. Yellowlees and Cook are affiliated with the Department of Psychiatry, University of California, Davis, Sacramento, California. Address correspondence to Dr. Yellowlees, 2300 Stockton Boulevard, Sacramento, CA 95817; pmyellowlees{at}ucdavis.edu (e-mail).

OBJECTIVE: The authors evaluate an Internet virtual reality technology as an education tool about the hallucinations of psychosis. METHOD: This is a pilot project using Second Life, an Internet-based virtual reality system, in which a virtual reality environment was constructed to simulate the auditory and visual hallucinations of two patients with schizophrenia. Eight hundred sixty-three self-referred users took a self-guided tour. RESULTS: Five hundred seventy-nine (69%) of the users who toured the environment completed a survey. Of the survey responders, 440 (76%) thought the environment improved their understanding of auditory hallucinations, 69% thought it improved their understanding of visual hallucinations, and 82% said they would recommend the environment to a friend. CONCLUSIONS: Computer simulations of the perceptual phenomena of psychiatric illness are feasible with existing personal computer technology. Integration of the evaluation survey into the environment itself was possible. The use of Internet-connected graphics environments holds promise for public education about mental illness.

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