Prevention of ICU-Related Anxiety in Lung Transplantation by Virtual Reality Therapy - PIRAT Study

ICU patients frequently face complicated recovery processes, including long-term anxiety disorders. Lung transplantation (LTx) offers people with terminal respiratory conditions both the hope of prolonged survival and a better quality of life related to health. Among the disorders usually encountered in the postoperative period of LTx are anxio-depressive disorders. These anxiety disorders affect the quality of life related to health and compromise the follow-up of the patient by phenomenon of psychological disinvestment. Other psychological disorders are also anchored in the patient's experience of this post-surgical ICU period (ie, depressive episodes and/or, at a distance, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). Various models of management of anxio-depressive disorders and PTSD are proposed in the literature. To our knowledge, while many of them have shown their efficiency in the curative management of disorders, few have demonstrated their effectiveness in preventing them. Exposure therapies using virtual reality (ETVR) have in the past demonstrated their effectiveness in many areas of psychiatry. In our study, experimental arm patients will be offered ETRV support with a virtual reality headset. A scenario with progressively increasing stress levels linked to the ICU environment and different situational contexts (alarms, etc.) will be presented to patients. This habituation to the potentially anxiety context of ICU will reduce the occurrence of psycho-cognitive disorders by progressive extinction phenomenon.