Cited by 81Eating Disorders and BehaviorsVirtual Reality Applications and ImpactsBody Image and Dysmorphia Studies

AN-VR-BE. A Randomized Controlled Trial for Reducing Fear of Gaining Weight and Other Eating Disorder Symptoms in Anorexia Nervosa through Virtual Reality-Based Body Exposure

Open access
Porras-Garcia, Bruno, Ferrer-Garcia, Marta, Serrano-Troncoso, Eduardo, Carulla-Roig, Marta, Soto-Usera, Pau, Miquel-Nabau, Helena, Fernández-Del castillo Olivares, Laura, Marnet-Fiol, Rosa +6 more·2021·Journal of Clinical Medicine

Abstract

In vivo body exposure therapy is considered an effective and suitable intervention to help patients with anorexia nervosa (AN) reduce their body image disturbances (BIDs). However, these interventions have notable limitations and cannot effectively reproduce certain fears usually found in AN, such as the fear of gaining weight (FGW). The latest developments in virtual reality (VR) technology and embodiment-based procedures could overcome these limitations and allow AN patients to confront their FGW and BIDs. This study aimed to provide further evidence of the efficacy of an enhanced (by means of embodiment) VR-based body exposure therapy for the treatment of AN. Thirty-five AN patients (16 in the experimental group, 19 in the control group) participated in the study. FGW, BIDs, and other body-related and ED measures were assessed before and after the intervention and three months later. The experimental group received treatment as usual (TAU) and five additional sessions of VR-based body exposure therapy, while the control group received only TAU. After the intervention, ED symptoms were clearly reduced in both groups, with most of the changes being more noticeable in the experimental group. Specifically, after the intervention and at follow-up, significant group differences were found in the FGW and BIDs, with the experimental group showing significantly lower values than the control group. The current study provides new insights and encouraging findings in the field of exposure-based therapies in AN. VR technology might improve research and clinical practice in AN by providing new tools to help patients confront their core fears (i.e., food- or weight-related cues) and improve their emotional, cognitive, and behavioral responses to their body image.

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Integrity signals

Registry

Crossref · 10.3390/jcm10040682

Cites

88 of 88 references verified0 citation errors · 0 not checkable

Statistics

Claims the paper makes

The claims and statistics of this paper haven’t been checked yet.

Run the check — free, no account needed. It reads the open-access text and checks the sources it cites.

A few free checks a day · papers already verified open instantly · results are public

Claims other papers make about this one

Each is checked against this paper’s own text: does it say what the citing paper says it does?

  • The imagination and anxiety levels reported by AN patients in the current study are similar to the results of previous research that even used more personalized avatars, adapted to the participants' real bodies.

    “Further, the imagination and anxiety levels reported by anorexia nervosa patients in the current study are similar to the results of previous research that even used more personalized avatars, adapted to the participants’ real bodies [60, 61].”

    From Anxiety matters: a pilot lab study into food, weight, and virtual body exposure in anorexia nervosa (2024) · cites this paper as [61]

    The Methods (§2.4; page unavailable) say the study monitored anxiety during virtual-body exposure, and the Discussion (§4; page unavailable) says the avatars matched patients’ silhouettes and BMI. The paper does not report imagination levels or compare its patients’ levels with those in the citing study. It also notes that other personal features, such as skin tone and hairstyle, were not reproduced. (LLM, conf=0.83)

    Experimental — accuracy not yet measured

Self-check

Percentages, sums and reported differences re-computed from the paper’s own numbers.

The self-check needs the paper’s full text.

Cites

Flagged first, then by citations

1 of the 89 references couldn’t be matched to a known paper.

Cited by

Sorted by citations

Authors
Porras-Garcia, B., Ferrer-Garcia, M., Serrano-Troncoso, E., Carulla-Roig, M., Soto-Usera, P., Miquel-Nabau, H., Fernández-Del castillo Olivares, L., Marnet-Fiol, R., de la Montaña Santos-Carrasco, I., Borszewski, B., Díaz-Marsá, M., Sánchez-Díaz, I., Fernández-Aranda, F., & Gutiérrez-Maldonado, J.
Affiliations
  • Department of Clinical Psychology and Psychobiology, University of Barcelona, Passeig de la Vall d’Hebron 171, 08035 Barcelona, Spain
  • Department of Child and Adolescent Psychiatry and Psychology, Hospital Sant Joan de Déu of Barcelona, Passeig de Sant Joan de Déu, 2, 08950 Esplugues de Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
  • Hospital Sant Joan de Déu Barcelona (ES)
  • Universitat de Barcelona (ES)
  • Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Clínico San Carlos, Madrid, Calle del Prof Martín Lagos, s/n, 28040 Madrid, Spain
  • Hospital Clínico San Carlos (ES)
  • Department of Psychiatry and Mental Health, Hospital Universitario de Bellvitge-IDIBELL and CIBEROBN, Barcelona, Carrer Feixa Llarga s/n, 08907 Hospitalet del Llobregat, Barcelona, Spain
Venue
Journal of Clinical Medicine
Publisher
MDPI AG
Published
2021-02-10
Volume
10
Issue
4
Pages
682
ISSN
2077-0383 (ISSN-L)
OpenAlex
W3127105969
Cited by
81
References
89
Citations by year
2026: 18 · 2025: 12 · 2024: 19 · 2023: 12 · 2022: 16 · 2021: 4
FWCI
8.70
Type
journal article
Language
en
Open access
Locations
  • Journal of Clinical Medicine (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed Central (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • PubMed (publishedVersion)
  • Hispana (publishedVersion, cc-by)
  • Docta Complutense (Universidad Complutense de Madrid) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • Dipòsit Digital de la Universitat de Barcelona (Universitat de Barcelona) (submittedVersion, cc-by)
  • DOAJ (DOAJ: Directory of Open Access Journals) (submittedVersion, cc-by-sa)
Funders
  • Ministerio de Ciencia e Innovación (PID2019-108657RB-I00, PSI2015-70389-R)
  • Agència de Gestió d'Ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca (2017SGR1693)
Topics
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Eating Disorders and Behaviors
  • Physical Sciences › Computer Science › Human-Computer Interaction › Virtual Reality Applications and Impacts
  • Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Body Image and Dysmorphia Studies
Keywords
anorexia nervosa, virtual reality exposure therapy, fear of gaining weight, body image disturbance, embodiment, eating disorder symptoms, exposure therapy

About these checks

Registry, retraction, Cites and statistics results are computed, not judged, with one exception: a printed reference that no index lists is read once by a model before it counts as a citation error. Claims are extracted by a model and kept only when their quote appears verbatim in the text; each cited source is then checked, with a model’s help, for whether it says what the claim relies on. Those verdicts can be wrong — read the claim’s quote and the cited source before relying on one.

Statistics and arithmetic are recomputed, not judged.

Confidence bands are shown only for fields calibrated on our annotated test set. None is calibrated yet, so no band is shown.

What counts as a claim ›How we measure confidence ›How we check this ›

Are you an author, or do you see a problem with this page? Request a review