Compare the effect of virtual reality and rhythmic breathing on physiologic parameters of patients candidate for angiography

Anxiety in patients under Coronary angiography leads to changes in cardiopulmonary parameters. The current study aimed to compare the effect of virtual reality and rhythmic breathing on physiological parameters of patients undergoing coronary angiography.

In this clinical trial study, 90 patients admitted to the cardiac care ward were studied in 2019-2020. They were selected by convenience sampling and randomly allocated into three groups: virtual reality, rhythmic breathing and control. Virtual reality and rhythmic breathing groups received intervention and control group received routine care. Systolic and diastolic blood pressure, heart rate; respiration rate and arterial oxygen saturation were measured before, half and one hour after the intervention in three groups. Data were analyzed by SPSS-16 using repeated measures analysis of variance and Chi-square.   

The results showed that the pattern of changes of the mean of respiration and heart rate was significantly difference in three times of measures in the three groups (p = 0.001). In the case of systolic and diastolic blood pressure and arterial oxygen saturation, the pattern of changes did not show a significant difference in the three groups (p >0.05).

The use of these methods can lead to modification of some physiological parameters, so the nurses can use these methods as non-invasive, without side effects, cheap and applicable to improve patients’ physiological parameters.