Reduce the Risk: An Affect Management Program for HIV Prevention

描述（由申请人提供）：拟议的项目，题为“降低风险：艾滋病毒预防的影响管理计划”，将研究使用沉浸式虚拟现实技术作为青少年预防艾滋病毒的干预工具。青少年有感染艾滋病毒的危险。情感失调在青少年中很常见。研究表明，不良的情绪管理能力与青少年危险的性行为之间存在联系。这项研究表明，调节情绪的能力是避免危险行为的关键，青少年更容易出现不良情绪管理技能。幸运的是，这些技能可以通过教学和建模来教授，使他们成为一个很好的干预目标，这在以前是通过角色扮演来实现的。沉浸式虚拟现实在模拟真实世界环境和增强艾滋病毒预防干预的影响方面，比用于青少年艾滋病毒预防干预的基于群体的角色扮演具有许多优势。沉浸式虚拟现实是一项很有前途的技术，它让青少年有机会在高度逼真、特定情境的虚拟环境中体验有效的情绪调节技能。这项技术的其他好处可能会增加青少年对艾滋病毒预防干预措施的参与和坚持。这个拟议的STTR项目的第一阶段和第二阶段的总体目标是为青少年开发、完善和评估虚拟现实环境，以影响管理为目标。在第一阶段，研究团队开发并完善了一个沉浸式虚拟环境，可以在高风险情况下引发影响。最后的沉浸式

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): The proposed project, titled Reduce the Risk: An Affect Management Program for HIV Prevention, will examine the use of immersive virtual reality technology as an intervention tool for HIV Prevention with adolescents. Adolescents are at risk for contracting HIV. Affect dysregulation is common among adolescents. Research has demonstrated connections between poor affect management abilities and risky sexual behavior among adolescents. This research suggests that the ability to regulate one's emotions is key to avoiding risk behaviors and that adolescents are at greater risk for poor affect management skills. Fortunately, these skills can be taught via teaching and modeling, making them an excellent target for intervention, which has previously been approached through role-playing. Immersive virtual reality offers many advantages over group based role-plays, used in HIV prevention interventions for adolescents, in its ability to simulate real-world environments and enhance the impact of HIV prevention interventions. Immersive virtual reality is a promising technology for giving teens the opportunity to experientially practice using effective affect regulation skills in a highly realistic, context specific virtual environment. Additional benefits f this technology will likely be increased engagement and retention in HIV prevention interventions among young adolescents. The overall aims of Phase I and Phase II of this proposed STTR project are to develop, refine, and evaluate virtual reality environments for adolescents targeting affect management. In Phase I, the research team developed and refined an immersive virtual environment that elicited affect in a high-risk situation. The final immersive virtual reality environments (completed in Phase II) can be used by health promotion interventionists in conjunction with an HIV prevention intervention manual as a means to elicit affect and provide adolescents with a "real world" environment in which to practice emotion regulation skills related to substance use and HIV prevention. These aims will be achieved through the collaboration of researchers at Rhode Island Hospital/Brown and Virtually Better, Inc. a small business that specializes in creating immersive virtual reality environments for treatment, education, and training purposes. This tool will represent a significant advance in the way in which affect regulation skills are practiced and honed, currently achieved via role plays or imaginal exposure, by increasing the salience of cues used to elicit affect, thus making it highly marketable to interventionists, schools, and mental health clinicians.