VR Experience Reduces Patient Anxiety Before Kidney Stone Procedure

Complex consent materials can leave people uncertain about risks, benefits, and what to expect on the day of treatment. To help address this challenge, clinicians tested a virtual reality experience to prepare patients for a noninvasive kidney stone procedure. Researchers now report that this approach improved understanding and reduced pre-procedural anxiety in people scheduled for treatment.

The project evaluated a virtual reality (VR) consent experience for shockwave lithotripsy at University Hospital Southampton. The research was presented on March 13, 2026, at the European Association of Urology (EAU) Congress 2026 in London. The initiative was developed with UK-based medical technology company Surgassists.

The VR module places the user in a virtual operating room and delivers a three-dimensional demonstration of shockwave lithotripsy, a noninvasive technique that uses high‑energy sound waves to fragment renal calculi. The animation zooms into the kidneys to show how shockwaves act on stones. Users can move around the room to view patient anatomy and surgical instruments from multiple angles, while on-screen prompts highlight key benefits and risks.

Investigators used questionnaires before and after the VR session to measure knowledge and anxiety. One hundred fifty adults aged 22 to 80 completed the experience as part of routine consent before planned lithotripsy. Participants reported better understanding of what to expect and lower anxiety after VR exposure. The effect was most pronounced in patients aged 65 years and older, and there was no difference by sex.

Because understanding, anxiety, and pain tolerance are linked, the team plans to explore whether VR‑based consenting could also affect pain outcomes. The work adds a structured, visual adjunct to standard information leaflets while keeping clinician discussion central to shared decision-making. Further evaluation will clarify durability of benefits and potential applications to other procedural pathways.

“There is currently a mismatch between the complexity of information provided to patients and the level which most people can comprehend. This risks people consenting to procedures they don't fully understand. VR has been shown to improve learning and knowledge retention, and our study suggests it could be used to help people to make more fully informed decisions about their health. We were also encouraged by what we saw in pain questionnaires, which gives us an important question to explore in future research,” said Solomon Bracey, a medical student at the University of Southampton, UK.

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University Hospital Southampton
Surgassists