Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: May 2, 2019
Date Accepted: Dec 16, 2019
Design strategies for virtual reality interventions for managing pain and anxiety in children and adolescents: A scoping review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Virtual Reality (VR) technology has been explored in the health sector as a novel tool for supporting treatment side effects, including managing pain and anxiety. VR has recently become more available with the launch of low-cost devices and applications.
Objective:
The objective of this study was to provide an updated review of the research into VR use for pain and anxiety in pediatric populations undergoing medical procedures.
Methods:
We performed a scoping review. To identify relevant studies, we searched 3 electronic databases. Two authors screened the titles and abstracts for relevance and eligibility criteria.
Results:
Overall, 1,386 articles were identified. In total, 18 articles are included in the review. Articles were published in English between 2013 and 2018. Our review determined VR technology is currently being administered in a range of situations including to modulate acute and chronic pain or anxiety, needle phobia and procedural care in children and adolescents. Findings were analyzed to develop a holistic model based on a human-centered approach, to describe the product, experience and intervention aspects that need to be considered in designing such medical VR applications.
Conclusions:
VR has been utilized widely in the health sector and has been demonstrated to be effective for pain and anxiety in a range of populations. There are few guidelines or models to inform the design of effective VR applications for supporting patients in the pediatric setting. Clinical Trial: N/A
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Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.