Therapie von Substanzabhängigkeitserkrankungen mithilfe neuer Medien

Addiction of harmful substances is still a major problem in our society and does not only lead to extreme monetary costs for our society, but also to costs of life and health of human beings. Despite the possibility of gold standard therapies, this offer is hardly used, and the probability of relapse is enormously high.
Cognitive Bias Modification (CBM) represents a promising new therapeutic modality that aims to directly modify cognitive biases. A major weakness of CBM, particularly in modifying harmful approach biases using the Approach-Avoidance Task (AAT), are the frequently repeated, monotonous actions.
Due to these problems, a transfer of the AAT training to virtual reality (VR) was pursued. An accompanying mobile application is intended to allow those undergoing the AAT training to do so outside of the VR lab sessions, which are bound by location and time.
To address these research gaps, a comprehensive analysis of the current state of research in this area was first conducted. Subsequently, two VR and two mobile application demonstrators were developed, each of which represent an innovation in the field of therapy of substance dependence disorders with the help of new media. This is primarily due to the use of highly realistic stimuli and immersive virtual environments (VE), which make the VR training entertaining and increase its ecological validity. Using the Leap Motion Controller also improves the transfer to everyday life, as it accurately transfers the hand and arm movements of the participants into the VE. The exact timing allows bias measurements in the VR context and thus increases the validity of the measurements.
To answer the research questions, after the application development, various feasibility studies were conducted with the VR demonstrators as well as the app demonstrators. In addition, the final VR demonstrator was successfully evaluated in the form of a randomized controlled trial (RCT).
Although the results show no modification of the cognitive biases, cigarette consumption was significantly reduced. Additionally, there was successful promotion of positive health behaviors.