Reduce the Risk: An Affect Management Program for HIV Prevention

该项目名为“降低风险：预防艾滋病毒的影响管理计划”，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风险。情感失调在青少年中很常见。研究表明，青少年不良的情感管理能力和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，青少年的情绪管理技能较差的风险更大。幸运的是，这些技能可以通过教学和建模来教授，使他们成为干预的绝佳目标，而以前是通过角色扮演来实现的。沉浸式虚拟现实在青少年艾滋病毒预防干预措施中使用的基于群体的角色扮演中具有许多优势，能够模拟真实世界环境并增强艾滋病毒预防干预措施的影响。沉浸式虚拟现实是一种很有前途的技术，可以让青少年有机会在高度逼真的、特定于情境的虚拟环境中体验性地练习有效的情感调节技能。这项技术的其他好处可能是增加青少年对艾滋病毒预防干预措施的参与和保留。这个拟议的STTR项目的第一阶段和第二阶段的总体目标是开发，完善和评估针对青少年的虚拟现实环境的影响管理。在第一阶段，研究小组开发并改进了一个沉浸式虚拟环境，在高风险情况下引发影响。最后的沉浸式 虚拟现实环境（在第二阶段完成）可由健康促进干预人员与艾滋病毒预防干预手册一起使用，作为一种手段，以引起影响，并为青少年提供一个“真实的世界”环境，在其中练习与药物使用和艾滋病毒预防有关的情绪调节技能。这些目标将通过罗得岛医院/布朗和Virtually Better，Inc.的研究人员合作实现。一家专门为治疗、教育和培训目的创建沉浸式虚拟现实环境的小型企业。这个工具将代表一个显着的进步，在其中影响调节技能的实践和磨练，目前通过角色扮演或 通过增加用于引发情感的线索的显著性，想象暴露，从而使其对干预者，学校和心理健康临床医生非常有市场。

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.