Project Desciption
Overview
After being triaged in the hospital emergency department, a procedure that takes approximately 10 minutes, children are typically transferred to a single patient waiting room. Here they spend between two to six hours before receiving treatment.
The medical professionals who must perform sometimes unpleasant and painful procedures on these young patients are often not well prepared to handle anxious children. Having waited several hours for an often-uncertain treatment can further contribute to the stress and anxiety that children experience, further complicating treatment. However, the waiting period also presents an opportunity to assess, and if needed intervene, to counteract and reduce anxiety in the young patients before they are met by medical professionals.
A particularly interesting patient group are children up to school age since they are challenging to reason with. Parents are also likely contributors to a child’s level of anxiety and could be included in the study (group assessment vs. single person).
As study participants will be placed in single patient rooms. Here they can be observed and given tasks to perform that assist in the collection of data (playing a game, simulating treatment, etc.). Equipment like cameras, sensors and screen can be installed in the room and used for data collection.
While other means might also be useful, facial expression and pulse rate analysis could be viable tools and a starting point for assessing anxiety in children. Galvanic skin response might not be a reliable indicator of anxiety due to the fact that children do not perspire as much as adults, but could still be included in the study. The level of engagement of a child with others (family members and medical professionals) could also be a valuable measure.
The goal of the study is to develop a tool(s) that allow for quick and easy, yet objective assessment of anxiety in patients prior to receiving medical treatment.
Following this, and based on the assessed level of anxiety, a variety of tools can be designed and tested to help medical professionals to intervene and calm patients prior to treatment.
At the hospital, a Nurse (Gitte M.F. Würz) is currently doing her PhD with a focus on exploring how best to assess children’s anxiety and to intervene, and at DTU we’re collaborating and supporting this.
The majority of the description above is courtesy of Michael Deininger, who wrote the original description.
Additional Reading
You can read more about the project here in past MSc theses:
- Garg, P.: Development of a machine learning tool along with UX design to assess levels of anxiety in children before they are met by medical professional in the emergency department (MSc Thesis, 2023)
- Kjeldsen, E.: Development of a UX/UI design to assess and respond to state anxiety children in the emergency department (MSc Thesis, 2023)
- Zhang, J.: Exploring the effectiveness of preparation interventions in reducing anxiety among pediatric patients in emergency setting through XR-based gamified experience (MSc Thesis, 2023)
- Meyer, E. and Folmer, E.: Reducing children’s anxiety in hospital waiting areas through a user centric system design (MSc Thesis, 2023)