scholarly journals Designing a Virtual Reality Game for Promoting Empathy Toward Patients With Chronic Pain: Feasibility and Usability Study (Preprint)

2019 ◽  
Author(s):  
Xin Tong ◽  
Diane Gromala ◽  
Seyedeh Pegah Kiaei Ziabari ◽  
Christopher D Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Pain ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Posttest Score ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Test Analysis ◽  
As If

BACKGROUND Many researchers have been evaluating how digital media may impact the emotional and perspective taking aspects of empathy in both clinical and nonclinical settings. Despite the growing interest in using virtual reality (VR) and VR games to motivate empathy, few studies have focused on empathy for people who live with chronic pain. OBJECTIVE Chronic pain affects, by conservative estimates, 1 in 5 people in industrialized countries. Despite this prevalence, public awareness of chronic pain was remarkably low until the recent opioid crisis; as a result, stigma remains a problem frequently faced by people who live with this condition. To address this, the VR game <i>AS IF</i> was developed to increase nonpatients’ empathy toward the growing number of people who live with long-term chronic pain. On the basis of our prior work, we overhauled our approach, designed and built a VR prototype and evaluated it, and offered design suggestions for future research. METHODS We introduced the design features of the VR game <i>AS IF</i> and described the study we devised to evaluate its effectiveness. We adopted a mixed methods approach and compared the empathy-related outcomes in both pre- and posttesting. A total of 19 participants were recruited. RESULTS The findings of this study suggest that the VR game was effective in improving implicit and explicit empathy as well as its emotional and perspective taking aspects. More specifically, for the <i>Empathy Scale</i>, the total pretest scores (mean 47.33, SD 4.24) and posttest scores (mean 59.22, SD 4.33) did not reach statistical significance (<i>P</i>=.08). However, we did find differences in the subscales. The <i>kindness</i> subscale showed a statistically significant increase in the posttest score (mean 15.61, SD 2.85) compared with the pretest score (mean 17.06, SD 2.65;<i>P</i>=.001). For the <i>Willingness to Help Scale</i>, a significant increase was observed from a t test analysis (<i>P</i>&lt;.001) of scores before (mean 7.17, SD 2.28) and after (mean 8.33, SD 2.03) the gameplay. The effect size for this analysis was large (<i>d</i>=−1.063). CONCLUSIONS The contributions of this research are as follows: <i>AS IF</i> provides a promising approach for designing VR games to motivate people’s empathy toward patients with chronic pain, the study evaluates the potential effectiveness of such a VR approach, and the general design suggestions devised from this study could shed light on future VR game systems.

scholarly journals Designing a Virtual Reality Game for Promoting Empathy Toward Patients With Chronic Pain: Feasibility and Usability Study

10.2196/17354 ◽  
2020 ◽  
Vol 8 (3) ◽  
pp. e17354
Author(s):  
Xin Tong ◽  
Diane Gromala ◽  
Seyedeh Pegah Kiaei Ziabari ◽  
Christopher D Shaw
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Pain ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Digital Media ◽  
Perspective Taking ◽  
Public Awareness ◽  
Statistical Significance ◽  
Posttest Score ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Test Analysis ◽  
As If

Background Many researchers have been evaluating how digital media may impact the emotional and perspective taking aspects of empathy in both clinical and nonclinical settings. Despite the growing interest in using virtual reality (VR) and VR games to motivate empathy, few studies have focused on empathy for people who live with chronic pain. Objective Chronic pain affects, by conservative estimates, 1 in 5 people in industrialized countries. Despite this prevalence, public awareness of chronic pain was remarkably low until the recent opioid crisis; as a result, stigma remains a problem frequently faced by people who live with this condition. To address this, the VR game AS IF was developed to increase nonpatients’ empathy toward the growing number of people who live with long-term chronic pain. On the basis of our prior work, we overhauled our approach, designed and built a VR prototype and evaluated it, and offered design suggestions for future research. Methods We introduced the design features of the VR game AS IF and described the study we devised to evaluate its effectiveness. We adopted a mixed methods approach and compared the empathy-related outcomes in both pre- and posttesting. A total of 19 participants were recruited. Results The findings of this study suggest that the VR game was effective in improving implicit and explicit empathy as well as its emotional and perspective taking aspects. More specifically, for the Empathy Scale, the total pretest scores (mean 47.33, SD 4.24) and posttest scores (mean 59.22, SD 4.33) did not reach statistical significance (P=.08). However, we did find differences in the subscales. The kindness subscale showed a statistically significant increase in the posttest score (mean 15.61, SD 2.85) compared with the pretest score (mean 17.06, SD 2.65;P=.001). For the Willingness to Help Scale, a significant increase was observed from a t test analysis (P<.001) of scores before (mean 7.17, SD 2.28) and after (mean 8.33, SD 2.03) the gameplay. The effect size for this analysis was large (d=−1.063). Conclusions The contributions of this research are as follows: AS IF provides a promising approach for designing VR games to motivate people’s empathy toward patients with chronic pain, the study evaluates the potential effectiveness of such a VR approach, and the general design suggestions devised from this study could shed light on future VR game systems.

The application of virtual reality in health professions� digital education: a narrative review (Preprint)

2018 ◽  
Author(s):  
Lorraine Tudor Car ◽  
Bhone Myint Kyaw ◽  
Josip Car
Keyword(s):  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Professional Education ◽  
Health Professions ◽  
Health Professions Education ◽  
Narrative Review ◽  
Current Evidence ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Educational Content ◽  
Potential Applications

BACKGROUND Digital technology called Virtual Reality (VR) is increasingly employed in health professions’ education. Yet, based on the current evidence, its use is narrowed around a few most applications and disciplines. There is a lack of an overview that would capture the diversity of different VR applications in health professions’ education and inform its use and research. OBJECTIVE This narrative review aims to explore different potential applications of VR in health professions’ education. METHODS The narrative synthesis approach to literature review was used to analyse the existing evidence. RESULTS We outline the role of VR features such as immersion, interactivity and feedback and explain the role of VR devices. Based on the type and scope of educational content VR can represent space, individuals, objects, structures or their combination. Application of VR in medical education encompasses environmental, organ and micro level. Environmental VR focuses on training in relation to health professionals’ environment and human interactions. Organ VR educational content targets primarily human body anatomy; and micro VR microscopic structures at the level of cells, molecules and atoms. We examine how different VR features and health professional education areas match these three VR types. CONCLUSIONS We conclude by highlighting the gaps in the literature and providing suggestions for future research.

Preservice Teachers’ Professional Noticing When Viewing Standard and 360 Video

2020 ◽  
pp. 002248712093954
Author(s):  
Karl W. Kosko ◽  
Richard E. Ferdig ◽  
Maryam Zolfaghari
Keyword(s):  
Teacher Education ◽  
Preservice Teachers ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Teacher Noticing ◽  
Professional Noticing ◽  
Novel Technology

Use of video as a representation of practice in teacher education is commonplace. The current study explored the use of a new format (360 video) in the context of preservice teachers’ professional noticing. Findings suggest that preservice teachers viewing 360 videos attended to more student actions than their peers viewing standard video. In addition, using a virtual reality headset to view the 360 videos led to different patterns in where preservice teachers looked in the recorded classroom, and to increased specificity of mathematics content from the scenario. Thus, findings and results support the use of 360 video in teacher education to facilitate teacher noticing. However, future research is needed to further explore this novel technology.

scholarly journals Cybersickness in current-generation virtual reality head-mounted displays: systematic review and outlook

2021 ◽  
Author(s):  
Polona Caserman ◽  
Augusto Garcia-Agundez ◽  
Alvar Gámez Zerban ◽  
Stefan Göbel
Keyword(s):  
Systematic Review ◽  
Virtual Reality ◽  
Meta Analysis ◽  
Subjective Evaluation ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Current Generation ◽  
Research Areas ◽  
Head Mounted Displays ◽  
Skin Response ◽  
Golden Standard

AbstractCybersickness (CS) is a term used to refer to symptoms, such as nausea, headache, and dizziness that users experience during or after virtual reality immersion. Initially discovered in flight simulators, commercial virtual reality (VR) head-mounted displays (HMD) of the current generation also seem to cause CS, albeit in a different manner and severity. The goal of this work is to summarize recent literature on CS with modern HMDs, to determine the specificities and profile of immersive VR-caused CS, and to provide an outlook for future research areas. A systematic review was performed on the databases IEEE Xplore, PubMed, ACM, and Scopus from 2013 to 2019 and 49 publications were selected. A summarized text states how different VR HMDs impact CS, how the nature of movement in VR HMDs contributes to CS, and how we can use biosensors to detect CS. The results of the meta-analysis show that although current-generation VR HMDs cause significantly less CS ($$p<0.001$$ p < 0.001 ), some symptoms remain as intense. Further results show that the nature of movement and, in particular, sensory mismatch as well as perceived motion have been the leading cause of CS. We suggest an outlook on future research, including the use of galvanic skin response to evaluate CS in combination with the golden standard (Simulator Sickness Questionnaire, SSQ) as well as an update on the subjective evaluation scores of the SSQ.

scholarly journals Evaluating the Relationship Between Initial Injury, Referral to A Pain Clinic, and Medical Retirement from the Army: A Retrospective Analysis

2021 ◽  
Vol 186 (Supplement_1) ◽  
pp. 502-505
Author(s):  
Justin J Stewart ◽  
Diane Flynn ◽  
Alana D Steffen ◽  
Dale Langford ◽  
Honor McQuinn ◽  
...  
Keyword(s):  
Chronic Pain ◽  
Retrospective Analysis ◽  
Extended Period ◽  
Pain Clinic ◽  
Outcome Variable ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Curvilinear Relationship ◽  
The Impact ◽  
Pain Care ◽  
The Relationship

ABSTRACT Introduction Soldiers are expected to deploy worldwide and must be medically ready in order to accomplish their mission. Soldiers unable to deploy for an extended period of time because of chronic pain or other conditions undergo an evaluation for medical retirement. A retrospective analysis of existing longitudinal data from an Interdisciplinary Pain Management Center (IPMC) was used to evaluate the temporal relationship between the time of initial duty restriction and referral for comprehensive pain care to being evaluated for medical retirement. Methods Patients were adults (&gt;18 years old) and were cared for in an IPMC at least once between May 1, 2014 and February 28, 2018. A total of 1,764 patients were included in the final analysis. Logistic regression was used to evaluate the impact of duration between date of first duty restriction documentation and IPMC referral to the outcome variable of establishment of a permanent 3 (P3) profile. Results The duration between date of first duty restriction and IPMC referral showed a curvilinear relationship to probability of a P3 profile. According to our model, a longer duration before referral is associated with an increased probability of a subsequent P3 profile with the highest probability peaking at 19 months. The probability of P3 declines gradually for those who were referred later. Discussion This is the first time the relationship between time of initial duty restriction, referral to an IPMC, and subsequent P3 or higher profile has been tested. Future research is needed to examine medical conditions listed on the profile to see how they might contribute to the cause of referral to the IPMC. Conclusion A longer duration between initial duty restriction and referral to IPMC was associated with higher odds of subsequent P3 status for up to 19 months. Referral to an IPMC for comprehensive pain care early in the course of chronic pain conditions may reduce the likelihood of P3 profile and eventual medical retirement of soldiers.

More than carrots and sticks: Economic statecraft and coercion in China–Taiwan relations from 2000 to 2019

Politics ◽  
2021 ◽  
pp. 026339572096265
Author(s):  
Christina Lai
Keyword(s):  
Public Awareness ◽  
Theoretical Development ◽  
Future Research ◽  
Asian Countries ◽  
Power Asymmetry ◽  
Economic Statecraft ◽  
Trading Partners ◽  
Economic Coercion ◽  
Chinese Group ◽  
Level Analysis

China has become one of the most important trading partners for many Asian countries, and Taiwan is at the forefront of China’s economic coercion. It also leads to the following empirical puzzle: When can Beijing’s economic sanctions and incentives achieve their desired outcomes? Why and how do they often fail? Given the power asymmetry between China and Taiwan, how Taiwan resists China’s coercive measures contributes significantly to theoretical development in international relations. Taiwan has responded to Chinese economic pressure by diversifying its trade with and investment in Southeast Asian and South Asian countries to lessen dependence on China. It also securitizes China–Taiwan relations by raising public awareness about over-reliance on China’s market. Taiwan is not only a target of China’s coercion, but an active actor in its own right as well. This article re-evaluates the literature on East Asian politics and economic statecraft. First, it highlights the salience of power asymmetry to the field of economic statecraft. Second, it offers a three-level analysis of when and how China exercised economic coercion and incentives towards Taiwan. Third, it examines how Taiwan addressed Beijing’s sanctions on Chinese group tourists starting in 2016. The final section discusses some conclusions that can be drawn and suggests some avenues for future research.

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