Assessing User Experience of a virtual reality training in patients with anorexia nervosa: insigths from a pilot study

VR effectiveness has been tested before in Anorexia Nervosa (AN) with full-body illusion. The embodiment of patients with AN into a different virtual body to modify their long-term memory of the body is a crucial factor for the onset and maintenance of this disorder. In this pilot study, we aimed to test the usability and User Experience (UX) of this VR-based protocol. Five Italian women with AN were embodied in a virtual body resembling their perceived body size from an ego-and an allocentric perspective while remembering episodes of their life related to their body. High levels of embodiment were reported while embodied in a virtual body resembling their real perceived body size for ownership (p<0.0001), agency (p<0.01), and self-location (p<0.01). Results from UX in terms of embodiment and personal opinion collected by the think aloud and patient’s interviews show that patients with AN can benefit from using VR as a driver for assessing and modulating body image distortions in patients with eating disorders.