Effects of Virtual Reality and Nature Sounds on Pain and Anxiety During Hysterosalpingography: Randomized Controlled Study

Infertility treatment is a stressful and anxious process that begins when couples are diagnosed with infertility. Although this process may seem like a simple medical intervention, the treatment stages affect the couple in many ways when it is deepened. Infertility treatment is a process that requires the active participation of couples against emotional and physical difficulties. The treatment process is a period in which couples should be in constant communication with healthcare professionals, as well as intensive routine and surgical procedures.In this process, medical and surgical treatment methods are used. In the literature, it is stated that 85-90% of the problems that cause infertility are solved with medical and surgical treatment. In the evaluation of infertile couples, hysterosalpingography (HSG) is a invasive radiologic procedure to visualize uterine cavity and tubes after contrast enhancement. HSG plays an important diagnostic role in finding the cause of infertility and in deciding the line of management.The aim of this study is to demonstrate the effects of virtual reality and nature sounds on pain and anxiety during hysterosalpingography. This randomized controlled study will conduct at Ondokuz Mayıs University Training and Research Hospital, Obstetrics and Gynecology polyclinic between February 2022 and August 2022. Volunteer women undergoing HSG as part of infertility evaluation will be includ. Participants will randomly assigned to the Virtual Reality and nature sounds intervention, nature sounds intervention or the control group using a computer-generated list. A data collection form including socio-demographic and obstetric characteristics such as age, educational status, place to live, duration of infertility, previous pregnancies, births, abortion/curettage numbers, Spielberger State Anxiety Scale and Visual Analog Scale for pain and Visual Analog Scales for satisfaction will use for each patient. After obtaining written informed consent, the data collection form, Spielberger State Anxiety Scale and VAS pain scoring scale will be applied to both groups by face to face interview during the day giving appointment for HSG. Immediately after the questionnaires were applied, the nurse gave virtual reality glasses and headphone to intervention group for before HSG and while HSG totally 30 minutes. The nurse gave to nature sounds intervention group headphone. After the groups will formed, a nature-based sound will listen to the women in the nature sounds group before and during the HSG procedure. Listening to nature-based sound will perform for a total of 15 minutes half an hour before the HSG procedure, and for 15 minutes during the procedure, for a total of 30 minutes. Participants in the control group received standard care (verbal information about procedure and a short written information about the procedure) and no intervention (nature sounds or virtual reality) will perform.The IBM SPSS (Statistical package for the Social Sciences) 23.0 package program will use to evaluate the data obtained in the study.