<![CDATA[Stress is a common psychological problem among university students and may be caused by academic, social, and environmental demands. This study aimed to examine the effect of multisensory virtual forest bathing (VFB) on reducing stress among university students. A randomized pretest-posttest waitlist-control design was employed. Participants were 58 undergraduate students from the Faculty of Psychology, Universitas Padjadjaran with moderate-to-high stress levels based on the Perceived Stress Scale (PSS-10), after outliers were removed. The experimental group received a ±9-minute 360° forest video intervention delivered through virtual reality (VR) with auditory and olfactory stimulation, while the waitlist control group received no intervention during the study period. Stress and affect were measured using the PSS-10 as the primary outcome and the Positive Affect Negative Affect Schedule (PANAS) as secondary outcomes. Data were analyzed using mixed ANOVA. The Time × Group interaction was significant for perceived stress (p = .041) and negative affect (p = .014), but not for positive affect (p = .290). These findings provide preliminary evidence of differences in perceived stress and negative affect over time between the multisensory VFB and no-intervention groups, although these effects cannot be attributed specifically to forest content.]]>
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