ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Public Health
Sec. Public Mental Health
Volume 13 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2025.1617483
This article is part of the Research TopicInnovations in Cognitive and Psychological Assessment: Integrating Immersive VR Technologies for Enhanced Ecological ValidityView all 3 articles
A Public Health Perspective on Virtual Reality Interventions: Exploring the Impact of VR Extreme Sports on Stress, Anxiety, and Depression in Men with Social Anxiety Disorder
Provisionally accepted
- 1School of Physical Education, Nanchang Institute of Science and Technology, Nanchang, China
- 2Nanchang Institute of Technology, Nanchang, Jiangxi Province, China
- 3University of Tehran, Tehran, Tehran, Iran
- 4Hebei Sport University, Shijiazhuang, Hebei Province, China
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Objective: Men diagnosed with social anxiety disorder (SAD) often face significant challenges in daily functioning, particularly within social settings. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of virtual reality (VR)-based extreme sports games in reducing symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress in this population. The intervention was designed to offer an engaging, immersive, and potentially less stigmatizing alternative to conventional therapeutic approaches.Methods: A quasi-experimental design with pre-test and post-test assessments was employed. Eighty-four men with SAD were selected through convenience sampling and randomly assigned to either an experimental group (n = 42) or a control group (n = 42). The experimental group participated in VR extreme sports sessions. Psychological symptoms were measured using the Depression, Anxiety, and Stress Scale (DASS-21), and data were analyzed via Analysis of Covariance (ANCOVA). Normality of data distribution was confirmed using the Kolmogorov-Smirnov test (p > 0.05), and Levene's test also confirmed the homogeneity of variances (p > 0.05), supporting the use of ANCOVA to compare adjusted post-test scores between groups.The VR-based intervention led to significant reductions across all three measured domains. Depression (η² = 0.916), anxiety (η² = 0.901), and stress (η² = 0.829) levels showed substantial improvement in the experimental group compared to the control group.These findings highlight the promise of VR-based extreme sports as a novel, nonpharmacological intervention for men with SAD. By enabling controlled exposure to anxietyprovoking situations within a safe and immersive environment, the intervention effectively alleviated symptoms of depression, anxiety, and stress. Moreover, this approach may overcome common treatment barriers such as stigma and reluctance toward traditional therapy. Future largescale, longitudinal studies are recommended to validate these outcomes and explore their longterm sustainability.
Keywords: Men Anxiety, Men health, Virtual reality training, Exercise Therapy, social anxiety
Received: 24 Apr 2025; Accepted: 03 Jun 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Yu, Faridniya and Wang. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Haiyang Yu, School of Physical Education, Nanchang Institute of Science and Technology, Nanchang, China
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