Virtual Reality therapy for young people with psychosis supported by Wellcome Trust

Dr Roos Pot-Kolder and Professor Andrew Thompson from the University and Orygen Digital will receive a share of the £16.8M pool of funds from the Wellcome Mental Health Award to develop and trial a Virtual Reality (VR) therapy for young people with psychosis.

The funding will help create VR therapy to improve how young people with early psychosis function in social situations and will involve them directly in the design and creation process. It will also support a trial that will run from 2023–2025 to test the VR therapy across multiple centres, including partners at Alfred Health, Victoria, the University of Adelaide, South Australia, and Telethon Kids Institute, Western Australia.

Psychotic disorders affect around 1 per cent of the population worldwide and more than 64,000 people in Australia are living with a psychotic illness. Among these Australians, nearly two thirds have difficulty with social functioning, which is the ability for people to interact easily and successfully with other people in social situations.

Of the design and trial, Dr Pot-Kolder said: “It’s not often the end user is involved in a process like this, so this allows us to have young people who are living with these struggles at the centre of both the innovation and the outcomes.”

Professor Andrew Thompson said: “We are extremely proud to be recognised on a global scale for our endeavours to better the mental health of young Australians with significant mental health challenges, who currently have few options for targeted digital treatments.”