Editorial: Virtual Reality, Augmented Reality and Video Games for Addressing the Impact of COVID-19 on Mental Health

Since 2020, the worldwide coronavirus 2019 (COVID-19) pandemic has been reported to have increased the frequency of adverse mental health and stress-related conditions, including, depression, anxiety disorders, PTSD, and substance use (Pfefferbaum and North, 2020; Xiong et al., 2020; Niles et al., 2021). Changes in lifestyle behaviors, social isolation, boredom, financial security, and general uncertainty appear to have had a negative impact on the mental health of populations globally, with potential long-lasting psychological and physical consequences (Brooks et al., 2020; Moreno et al., 2020; Salari et al., 2020). Virtual reality (VR), augmented reality (AR), and video games (VGs) appear as some of the most appealing technological interventions for addressing the impact of COVID-19 on mental health (Granic et al., 2014; Imperatori et al., 2020; Riva et al., 2020; Singh et al., 2020; Viana and De Lira, 2020; Woolliscroft, 2020; Barr and Copeland-Stewart, 2021; Rizzo et al., 2021 in press). Therefore, we brought together within this Research Topic contributions from researchers investigating theoretical, empirical, experimental, and case studies of VR, AR, and VGs for addressing the impact of COVID-19 on mental health.