Virtual Reality Images of the Home Are Useful for Patients With Hospital-Based Palliative Care: Prospective Observational Study With Analysis by Text Mining

BACKGROUND: Malignancy patients who need long-term hospitalization can feel loneliness affecting their quality of life. The global COVID-19 pandemic has caused visiting restrictions that could mean patients who might be missing out on family support and palliative care, therefore, need to adapt and change. We used virtual reality (VR) technology with the aim of reducing feelings of loneliness among these patients. OBJECTIVES: In a small cohort setting, we aimed to clarify the usefulness of VR viewing for this purpose by text mining interviews with the patients in palliative care after their VR experience, and to clarify the feasibility of this program. DESIGN AND SETTING/SUBJECTS: Four consecutive Japanese patients in the palliative care unit viewed personalized familiar persons or places through VR goggles, while communicating by telephone. After the VR experience, text mining of the patients' interviews was used to extract the words for the frequency count and co-occurrence analysis. RESULTS: Four clusters were extracted: “relief from the pain of hospitalization by feeling safe and secure with family members nearby,” “using VR to regain daily life,” “immersive feeling of being in the same space as family,” and “loneliness due to the realistic feeling of separation from the family through VR experience.” There were no cases of VR sickness. CONCLUSION: Our results attained by text mining suggest the promising potential of VR imaging of familiar surroundings for patients in palliative care.