Abstract
<title>Abstract</title> <p>Virtual reality (VR) has evolved into a mature immersive technology with applications spanning education, healthcare, rehabilitation, mental health, industry, tourism, sports, remote collaboration, retail, and cultural heritage. Despite substantial evidence supporting its effectiveness, widespread adoption and sustained long-term engagement remain inconsistent across application domains. This systematic literature synthesis reviews high-quality secondary evidence, including systematic reviews, meta-analyses, scoping reviews, and theory-focused studies published primarily between 2015 and 2025, to identify the key determinants of VR acceptance, adoption, and continued use. The review compares dominant theoretical frameworks, including the Technology Acceptance Model (TAM), the Unified Theory of Acceptance and Use of Technology (UTAUT/UTAUT2), and immersive-specific extensions incorporating presence, immersion, cybersickness, trust, and facilitating conditions. Cross-domain analysis reveals that perceived usefulness, performance expectancy, enjoyment, and presence consistently promote acceptance, whereas cybersickness, usability challenges, organizational readiness, and inadequate facilitating conditions remain persistent barriers to sustainable adoption. The synthesis further identifies recurring methodological limitations, including the overreliance on behavioral intention instead of actual long-term usage, limited longitudinal validation, inconsistent measurement of immersive constructs, and insufficient multi-stakeholder evaluations. Based on these findings, the review highlights the need for an integrated immersive technology continuance framework that jointly models cognitive, experiential, physiological, and organizational determinants of long-term VR engagement across diverse application domains. The study provides a comprehensive evidence base for future empirical research and offers practical guidance for designing scalable and sustainable VR systems.</p>