Clinician perspective on VR Games for Managing Periprocedural Anxiety in Children

Abstract

Many children experience periprocedural anxiety (occurring before, during, or immediately after the a medical procedure such as induction of anaesthesia or immunisation) in hospital settings. A number of strategies, such as distraction and focus shifting, are commonly used in medical practice to help paediatric patients manage their anxiety. In recent years, Virtual Reality (VR) has been investigated as a promising tool in hospital settings, particularly through mediating distraction. In this paper, we present the findings from a focus group with four clinicians and attempt to explore key elements inherent in their practice that can be leveraged for designing impactful VR applications for managing periprocedural anxiety in paediatric hospitals. Our contribution is a set of insights relevant to patients, their needs, tailoring of strategies, and future design directions. We benchmark three existing VR applications against our findings to generate potential design opportunities for VR applications.