The effect of virtual reality glasses application on anxiety and fatigue in women with breast cancer receiving adjuvant chemotherapy: Pretest-posttest randomized controlled study

The research was conducted in a pretest posttest, parallel group randomized controlled design in order to determine the effect of virtual reality glasses application on anxiety and fatigue in women with breast cancer receiving adjuvant chemotherapy. The research was carried out in the oncology outpatient clinic of an university hospital. A total of 66 patients were included in the sampling, 33 of whom were in the intervention group and 33 were in the control group, with block randomization. Introductory Information Form, State Anxiety Scale and Cancer Fatigue Scale were used as data collection tools. In the application of the study, scales were applied to the intervention and control groups before chemotherapy, and the intervention group was watched 30 minutes of beach and nature content with virtual reality glasses during four adjuvant chemotherapy cycles. Standard care was given to the control group, and then scales were applied to both groups. Data were collected between October 2021 and November 2022. Ethical permission of the study (07.07.2021/Decision number: 12-66) and registration number (Clinical Trial No: NCT05168696) were obtained. Descriptive data mean, standard deviation, percentage were used in the analysis of the data, and in the evaluation of the groups, independent sample t-test, dependent sample t-test, analysis of variance, and chi-square test were used. The mean age of the patients participating in the study was 53.42±9.25 years in the intervention group and 51.42±8.53 years in the control group. It was determined that the patients had a similar distribution in terms of sociodemographic characteristics (p>0.05). In the intervention group, it was determined that the post-application anxiety mean scores decreased compared to the pretest mean scores (p<0.05), and the anxiety posttest mean scores decreased from the first cycle to the last cycle (p<0.05). In addition, the anxiety post-test mean scores of the intervention group were found to be lower in all four cycles than the anxiety post-test mean scores of the control group (p<0.05). In the intervention group, fatigue and sub-dimensions post-test mean scores decreased in all cycles compared to the pre-test mean scores (p<0.05). When the fatigue levels between the groups were compared, it was determined that the 2nd and 3rd cycle post-test fatigue scores of the intervention group were lower than the control group (p<0.05). In the fatigue sub-dimensions, it was determined that emotional fatigue was lower in each cycle and physical fatigue in the second cycle was lower in the intervention group (p<0.05). In addition, it was determined that the emotional fatigue pretest score averages of the control group increased over time in each cycle (p<0.05). In the research, it was determined that the application of virtual reality glasses was effective in reducing anxiety, sub-dimensions and fatigue in patients with breast cancer. It is recommended to use the recommended virtual reality glasses to reduce anxiety and fatigue. For this reason, it is recommended to introduce the use of virtual reality glasses to the patients and to present their use to the patients' preference.