Evaluation
“All the information contained in this section is for guidance only. Psious environments are 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.”
Fear of Flying
Evaluation Objectives
- Evaluate the presence and comorbidity of other emotional disorders, in particular specific phobias, other anxiety and emotional disorders.
- 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 flying
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-REPORTING
- Cuestionario de Miedo a Volar/Fear of Flying Questionnaire/Questionari de por de volar (CMV-II/FFQ-II/QPV-II, Bornas et al. 1999).
- Fear of flying Scale (FFS, Haug et al., 1987).
- 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 flight generate? What level of discomfort, on a scale of 0 to 100, would lead you to take a plane? Is there something that makes you feel even more uncomfortable?) all geared at the planning of the intervention via the virtual reality.