Study: Effectiveness of an Online Self-applied Psychological Treatment for Rat Phobia Guided by a Virtual Assistant in the Mexican Population: A Randomized Clinical Trial

Link to study information: https://clinicaltrials.gov/study/NCT05081323

Country: MX

Start date: 2023-01

Publications: An internet-based self-applied rat phobia treatment using a Virtual Therapy Assistant: Study protocol for a randomized controlled trial; Sonia M. González-Lozoya , Victoria Meza-Kubo , Alejandro Dominguez-Rodriguez , Cristina Ramírez-Fernández , Eduardo Bautista-Valerio , Liliana Moreyra-Jiménez , Alberto L. Morán; PLOS; Published: February 15, 2023; https://doi.org/10.1371/journal.pone.0281338

Abstract: The research work proposes an exposure treatment through a virtual therapeutic assistant called Thera, that interacts verbally with the patient, to guide and control exposure therapies for phobias to small animals delivered through several channels at the same time that it analyzes the Physiological records of the patient in real-time to determine their emotional state during the intervention. In this study it is proposed to evaluate the efficacy of a self-applied treatment where the virtual assistant allows to gradually guide an exposure treatment for rat phobias, taking advantage of intelligent devices for patient monitoring and being considered to determine the progress of the treatment.