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Publication
Hospital hero: a game for reducing stress and anxiety of children while waiting in emergency room
| Name: | Description: | Size: | Format: | |
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| 8.36 MB | Adobe PDF |
Advisor(s)
Abstract(s)
This report tells a story which started as an idea that came to us to fight the battle-cry feeling commonly known as stress and anxiety. Before creating the solution of the idea, we first need to understand the feelings underneath and its effects on our well-being.
Throughout the course of our lives, we experience states of weakness and fear. These feelings can arise, for instance, while we are in an emergency room.
Needless to say, how much it would have imaginable effects on children, who are
unfamiliar to such environments. We ran through a serious of scenarios to find
the most suitable solution, among them the study of interaction with positive
expressions by Dr. Baldwin, proved to be a valued resource. It was reduced due to
its length and to be suitable to our public audience.
The game was then created in order to reduce or even eliminate the stress and anxiety of children. Since the game was initially released, some modifications had been made but the original idea - interaction with positive expressions – remained.
When the time came, we asked children to play one of the two versions of the game while waiting in the emergency room. This not only created a diversion for them but also a learning experience as it displayed some hospital equipment.
The difference between the two versions is that one provides expressions, while the other does not. After all our hard work, we felt rewarded because the project proved its
worth and we would see that in the expressions on children’s faces while they
played. Most importantly, their anxiety level numbers were significantly reduced
during that short period of time.
Description
Keywords
Serious games Children emergency room Stress and anxiety Informatics Engineering . Centro de Ciências Exatas e da Engenharia