Reduce the Risk: An Affect Management Program for HIV Prevention

描述(由申请者提供)：拟议的项目名为降低风险：艾滋病毒预防的影响管理计划，将研究沉浸式虚拟现实技术作为青少年艾滋病毒预防的干预工具的使用。青少年感染艾滋病毒的风险很大。情绪失调在青少年中很常见。研究表明，不良的情感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，控制情绪的能力是避免危险行为的关键，青少年因不良情绪管理技能而面临的风险更大。幸运的是，这些技能可以通过教学和建模来传授，这使它们成为干预的极好目标，而以前的干预是通过角色扮演来实现的。沉浸式虚拟现实与用于青少年艾滋病毒预防干预的基于小组的角色扮演相比，具有许多优势，因为它能够模拟现实世界环境，并增强艾滋病毒预防干预的影响。沉浸式虚拟现实是一种很有前途的技术，它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使用有效的情绪调节技能进行练习。这项技术的其他好处可能是在青少年中更多地参与和保留艾滋病毒预防干预措施。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、改进和评估针对情感管理的虚拟现实环境。在第一阶段，研究团队开发和改进了一个沉浸式虚拟环境，在高风险情况下引发影响。最终的身临其境 虚拟现实环境(在第二阶段完成)可由健康促进干预者与艾滋病毒预防干预手册结合使用，作为一种手段来激发情感，并为青少年提供一个“真实世界”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。这些目标将通过罗德岛医院/布朗医院的研究人员和一家专门为治疗、教育和培训目的创建身临其境的虚拟现实环境的小企业VirtualBetter，Inc.的合作来实现。这一工具将代表着影响调节技能的练习和磨练方式的重大进步，目前通过角色扮演或 想象性暴露，通过增加用来引发情感的线索的显着性，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.