Accepted for/Published in: JMIR XR and Spatial Computing (JMXR)
Date Submitted: Jul 28, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Jul 28, 2025 - Sep 22, 2025
Date Accepted: Apr 30, 2026
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Improving health-related symptoms and behaviors in diabetic children and adolescents by using a VR gamified self-care method: Randomized controlled trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Self-care plays an important role in improving health symptoms in patients diagnosed with chronic illnesses such as diabetes. there has been many traditional and modern methods used for diabetes self-care. among the modern methods are monitoring applications and score-based gamifications systems.
Objective:
This study aims to develop a self-care system using gamification in a virtual reality (VR) environment and to evaluate its effects on diabetic patients’ metabolic symptoms, including fasting blood sugar (FBS), HbA1c and BMI, as well as health-related behaviors, including physical activity and food intake.
Methods:
After designing the VR game, its effect was compared with other self-care methods. Participants were randomly assigned to four experimental groups. Each group received a different type of intervention for six weeks. Symptoms were measured and analyzed accordingly using repeated measures ANOVA.
Results:
A significant Time * condition interaction effect was observed for three variables: physical activity (p = 0.003), food intake (p = 0.002) and FBS (p = 0.029). There were no statistically significant differences for BMI and HbA1C.
Conclusions:
VR gamification intervention is likely to have a stronger effect on improving diabetes-related symptoms and behaviors, compared to other self-care methods. There is great potential in making gamified systems that can help control and improve health outcomes in patients diagnosed with metabolic diseases like diabetes.
Citation
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Copyright
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