Children's perceptions of interactive virtual-reality interventions implemented before and after intravenous cannulation.

BACKGROUND: Although some studies have reported evidence of the effectiveness of virtual-reality interventions implemented for children undergoing intravenous (IV) cannulation, children's perceptions of virtual-reality interventions implemented during IV cannulation warrant further exploration. AIMS: To explore the school-aged children's perceptions of interactive virtual-reality interventions implemented before and after IV cannulation. METHODS: A qualitative descriptive study was adopted. Sixty-nine children aged 6-12 years from two medical centers were recruited and interviewed from June to September 2020. After the completion of the immersive virtual-reality scene of IV cannulation before undergoing actual IV cannulation and the emotionally cathartic virtual-reality play after the placement process, individual interviews were conducted with the children in the paediatric wards. Inductive content analysis was performed to analyse children's perceptions. The study complied with the Consolidated Criteria for Reporting Qualitative Research. RESULTS: Three categories related to children's perception of interactive virtual-reality interventions implemented before and after IV cannulation were identified: (1) feelings towards and coping strategies employed during IV cannulation; (2) mental preparation through immersion in the virtual-reality scene; and (3) healing effects of immersive cathartic play. CONCLUSIONS: The findings indicate that interactive virtual-reality interventions can help hospitalised children mentally prepare for medical procedures, obtain knowledge regarding such procedures, and overcome their fear of needles. The children's reported perceptions of the virtual-reality interventions indicated that the interventions were age-appropriate, safe and fun. The results of this study highlight the need to more thoroughly understand the perceptions of hospitalised children and may serve as a reference for designing child-friendly care interventions for nursing practice.

Mockup design of personal health diary app for patients with chronic kidney disease.

Health self-management is important in the care of patients with chronic kidney disease. It is possible to improve the efficiency of patient self-management through the use of mobile technology and related software. This study is divided into three stages: 1. analysis of need: through observation, interview and content analysis of the chronic kidney disease health management manual; 2. design of system prototype: establish interface and system function; 3. prototype evaluation: evaluate whether the prototype designed by this study meets user needs. The system prototype includes: daily record, laboratory examination results, trend graphs, information search, sharing, communications and settings. Prototyping is done with Pencil Project for interface design and linking. The prototype is then exported in PDF format for mock-up simulation. Evaluation results: overall score was 4.01±0.60 leaning towards "agree", the highest score was ease of use (4.25±0.6), followed by easy to learn (4.15±0.68), acceptance (4.01±0.61), reliability (3.87±0.6) and functionality (3.83±0.49). The results show positive attitude towards the system.

End-user developed workflow-based hemodialysis nursing record system.

We reported how we decided to build our own Hemodialysis nursing record system using the end user computing strategy with Excel VBA. The project took one year to complete since we used our off-duty time and started everything from the grounds. We are proud of the final system which tightly meets our workflow and clinical needs. Its interface was carefully designed to be easy to use with a style.