Evaluation of Virtual Reality to Reduce Anxiety, Pain and Duration of Non-emergency Vigile Bronchial Fibroscopy (AVATAR)

Bronchial fibroscopy (BF) is a routine practice examination in critical care areas. It can be useful either for the diagnosis of the causal pathology of respiratory distress or for the diagnosis of lung infection, sometimes nosocomial. In patients in spontaneous and conscious ventilation, BF are performed vigil after local anesthesia according to the recommendations of the Société de Pneumologie de langue Française. The good tolerance of the examination and its good conduct may require the use of anxiolytics, sedatives or analgesics to limit the traumatic experience of a highly anxiety-provoking examination. Virtual reality (VR) combines a set of paramedical techniques (hypnosis, music therapy, sophrology) and is now a non-drug alternative to improve the tolerance of certain invasive gestures.VR has been shown to reduce pain and anxiety during first pathways placement or digestive endoscopies. To date, there is no evidence of the benefit of VR when performing semi-urgent BF in critical care areas.