# Virtual Reality: A New Technological Modality to Deliver Psychotherapyto Hemodialysis Patients with Comorbid Depression

> **NIH NIH R01** · UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN · 2022 · $317,326

## Abstract

PROJECT SUMMARY
Hemodialysis (HD) is a taxing procedure with extensive illness burden and arduous self-care demands. As
such, more than 30% of HD patients experience elevated symptoms of depression—and, research shows that
comorbid depression is associated with adverse kidney disease outcomes, greater risk of hospitalization, and
decreased survival rates. Current interventions to treat depressive symptoms in HD patients are resource
intensive, infrequently administered, and often involve delivery of psychotherapy by highly-trained clinicians via
multiple face-to-face communications. There remains a critical scientific gap for easily disseminatable and
efficient strategies to improve emotional well-being profiles of HD patients in the U.S. and around the world.
Our objective in this small R01 study is to design a virtual reality (VR) platform that fully immerses users into a
fictitious lifelike environment, to deliver our evidence-based positive psychological intervention and to test
whether it improves the emotional well-being of HD patients with comorbid depression. For instance, during the
module focused on mindfulness/meditation, we will use a head-mounted display to fully immerse and transport
HD patients to an open field beside a calming stream where they will engage in a 12-minute guided meditation.
As such, we propose to conduct a 2-arm randomized controlled trial in which HD patients (N=84) will be
randomly assigned to receive either our JovialityTM VR-based positive psychological intervention or an active
control condition (i.e., educational television programming). We hypothesize that chairside delivery of
psychotherapeutic treatment in HD patients using a VR environment will prove feasible and will result in
significant improvements in depressive symptoms, quality of life, and dietary adherence, with lower evident
rates for missed HD sessions and lower hospitalizations—all while serving as a more cost-effective and far-
reaching platform that will greatly expand dissemination. Knowledge gained from completion of the proposed
research will result in the first VR software application to deliver psychotherapy to HD patients, while
simultaneously allowing them to leave the confines of the clinic and virtually travel to distant regions of the
world.

## Key facts

- **NIH application ID:** 10478221
- **Project number:** 5R01DK129594-02
- **Recipient organization:** UNIVERSITY OF ILLINOIS AT URBANA-CHAMPAIGN
- **Principal Investigator:** Rosalba Hernandez
- **Activity code:** R01 (R01, R21, SBIR, etc.)
- **Funding institute:** NIH
- **Fiscal year:** 2022
- **Award amount:** $317,326
- **Award type:** 5
- **Project period:** 2021-09-01 → 2024-07-31

## Primary source

NIH RePORTER: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/10478221

## Citation

> US National Institutes of Health, RePORTER application 10478221, Virtual Reality: A New Technological Modality to Deliver Psychotherapyto Hemodialysis Patients with Comorbid Depression (5R01DK129594-02). Retrieved via AI Analytics 2026-05-25 from https://api.ai-analytics.org/grant/nih/10478221. Licensed CC0.

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