Effects of virtual reality on the treatment of amblyopia in children: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Problem: Virtual reality technology has been used to treat amblyopia in children. However, it is unclear how virtual reality technology differs from conventional patching therapy in terms of effectiveness.Eligibility criteria: Eligible randomized controlled studies were retrieved from PubMed, Embase, Scopus, the Cochrane Library, and Web of Science through February 2023.Sample: Eight studies included 10 trials with 459 participants were included in the current meta-analysis. Two studies (Herbison et al., 2016; Huang et al., 2022) included two trials each. Thus, a total of ten trials were included in the current meta-analysis. Results: Overall, virtual reality technology treatment significantly improved visual acuity by 0.07 log MAR (95% confidence interval [CI], -0.11 to -0.02; P < 0.001; I-2 = 94.4%) compared with traditional patching therapy. In addition, subgroup analyses also revealed that treatment with virtual reality technology was more effective when the child was younger than seven years old, or when the duration of the intervention was no more than twenty hours. Conclusions: Virtual reality technology treatment showed significant effects in improving visual acuity in children who were seven years of age or younger with amblyopia. Implications: Virtual reality technology treatment is effective in treating amblyopia in children. Virtual reality therapy is also entertaining and popular among children and can be applied to the treatment of amblyopia in children in the future.