Evaluation
“All the information contained in this section is for guidance only. Psious environments are therapy supporting tools that must be used by the healthcare professional within an evaluation and intervention process designed according to the characteristics and needs of the user.
Also remember that you have the General Clinical Guide in which you have more information on how to adapt psychological intervention techniques (exposure, systematic desensitization, cognitive restructuring, chip economy…) to Psious environments.”
Evaluation Objectives
- Evaluate the presence and comorbidity of other emotional disorders, in particular specific phobias, other anxiety and emotional disorders.
- Evaluate anxiety associated with components: intensity, frequency, characteristics…
- Set the feared stimulative settings for the patient and define to what extent. Exposure hierarchy development.
- Measure the presence of distorted thoughts.
Some useful instruments for Fear of Blood and Needles
Taking the evaluation objectives into account let’s proceed onto listing some tools and devices that can be useful in gathering relevant information on the user characteristics. Always remember good goal setting, patient characterization and intervention planning are important in effective and efficient therapies, as that of your patients’ satisfaction. The following are the articles you will find in the bibliography where you can refer to the proposed tool characterization:
- Open or semi-structured interview
- Structured interview: ADIS-IV
- Behavioral approach test/behavior avoidance (in vivo or with Virtual Reality)
SELF-REPORTS
- Fear Questionnaire (FQ-BI, Marks y Mathews, 1979)
- Blood-injection Phobia Inventory (BIPI, Mas, Jiménez & San Gregorio, 2010)
- Psious Self-Reports for the elaboration of the hierarchy (annexes)
Exposure Hierarchy development with Psious Environments
Once we have received the evaluation information we can then proceed to develop the hierarchy exposure. To do this, in addition to using the data obtained during the initial evaluation, we can carry out a series of questions, (For example, what level of discomfort, on a scale of 0 to 100, does a blood extraction have generated? What level of discomfort, on a scale of 0 to 100, would lead you to take a blood test? Is there something that makes you feel even more uncomfortable?) all geared at the planning of the intervention via the Virtual Reality.
Hierarchy example
A proposal for a treatment protocol that includes the Psious tool is described below. It is recommended to combine Virtual Reality with traditional techniques, such as relaxation or cognitive restructuring.