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ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychiatry
Sec. Adolescent and Young Adult Psychiatry
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyt.2025.1484938
A New Treatment Approach to Conduct Disorder and Callous-Unemotional Traits: An Assessment of the Acceptability, Appropriateness, and Feasibility of Impact VR
Provisionally accepted- 1Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, United States
- 2Arche VR, LLC, Glen Allen, Virginia, United States
- 3Florida International University, Miami, Florida, United States
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Introduction: Conduct disorder (CD) is highly prevalent among youth, yet existing and conventional treatment approaches are limited and costly. Further, most interventions for CD focus on behavior management rather than targeting the underlying mechanisms of CD. To meet the needs of youth with CD (ages 10-17), we developed Impact VR, a virtual reality intervention that promotes competency in emotion recognition and regulation, as well as modeling prosocial behaviors. Impact VR provides immersive storylines and gamification of psychoeducation training. The present study aimed to understand the perceptions of Impact VR for acceptability, feasibility, and usability across key stakeholder groups, including youth with CD, caregivers of youth with CD, mental health practitioners, and educators. Methods: A total of 60 adults, including mental health professionals (n=20), teachers (n=20), caregivers (n=20), and 20 youth with CD completed a trial of Impact VR and completed surveys. Results: Results demonstrated a high overall acceptability of Impact VR (95% -100%) across all groups, and a high approval rating for intervention appropriateness (98.75% -100%) and feasibility of the intervention (97.50% -100%) across stakeholder groups. The majority of youth (90%-100%) reported that the skills learned would improve their mental health and relationships with friends, parents, and teachers. Discussion: Findings revealed that youth with CD and key stakeholder groups rate Impact VR favorably and positively. Future research is needed on the effectiveness of Impact VR in improving emotion recognition and reducing CD symptoms.
Keywords: virtual reality, Conduct Disorder, Emotions, Treatment, Callous unemotional traits, Mental health interventions
Received: 22 Aug 2024; Accepted: 27 Mar 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Thomson, Ph.D., UKCP, Kevorkian, Hazlett, Perera and Vrana. 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: Nicholas D Thomson, Ph.D., UKCP, Virginia Commonwealth University, Richmond, United States
Disclaimer: All claims expressed in this article are solely those of the authors and do not necessarily represent those of their affiliated organizations, or those of the publisher, the editors and the reviewers. Any product that may be evaluated in this article or claim that may be made by its manufacturer is not guaranteed or endorsed by the publisher.