ReviewCureus2025
Virtual Reality for Perioperative Care in Cardiac Surgery: A Systematic Review and Meta-Analysis.
Review in Cureus, 2025. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Not yet cited in PubMed.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
0 citing papers in PubMed.
No citing paper in PubMed yet.
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Cardiac surgery imposes substantial physiological and psychological stress, with preoperative anxiety and postoperative pain persisting despite advances in perioperative care. Elevated anxiety has been associated with longer recovery and poorer outcomes, emphasizing the need for adjunctive, nonpharmacological interventions. Virtual reality (VR), an immersive digital technology that modulates sensory perception and emotional responses, has shown benefit in other surgical fields but has not been systematically evaluated in cardiac surgery. This systematic review and meta-analysis provide the first comprehensive synthesis of randomized controlled trials (RCTs) assessing VR in adult cardiac surgery. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) 2020 guidelines and International Prospective Register of Systematic Reviews (PROSPERO) registration, PubMed, Embase, and Cochrane Library were searched from inception to October 2025. Primary outcomes were anxiety, pain, and satisfaction; secondary outcomes included physiological responses, opioid use, and adverse events. Risk of bias was assessed using the RoB 2 tool, and evidence certainty was evaluated with the Grading of Recommendations Assessment, Development and Evaluation (GRADE) approach. The data were synthesized using a random-effects meta-analysis. Nine RCTs encompassing 888 participants were included. Meta-analysis of seven trials showed a nonsignificant trend toward lower preoperative anxiety with VR versus control (standardized mean difference (SMD) = -0.23; 95% CI -0.50 to 0.04, low heterogeneity (I² = 37%)). Four studies assessing patient satisfaction also showed a nonsignificant favor of VR (SMD = 0.36; 95% CI -0.65 to 1.38; I² = 92%). While two studies found no consistent analgesic benefit, physiological data suggested VR may attenuate autonomic arousal, lowering heart rate and blood pressure in select settings, though findings remained heterogeneous. Across all trials, VR was well tolerated, with only mild, transient adverse events reported. VR represents a feasible and safe perioperative adjunct in cardiac surgery, demonstrating favorable, nonsignificant trends in anxiety reduction and patient satisfaction. Further large-scale, standardized RCTs are warranted to confirm its physiological and clinical utility.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the Socratic graph.