When you are ill, a visit to the hospital is often a stressful and worrisome experience. Especially when you are a child and you cannot fully understand or imagine what is going to happen to you. A clinical environment that contains ‘scary’ looking medical equipment does not make
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When you are ill, a visit to the hospital is often a stressful and worrisome experience. Especially when you are a child and you cannot fully understand or imagine what is going to happen to you. A clinical environment that contains ‘scary’ looking medical equipment does not make you feel at ease. On the contrary, this can be experienced as confronting and can create anxiety. This master thesis focuses on improving the treatment experience of children that visit the Reinier de Graaf hospital.
The research that was done during this project gives insight in to the aspect that have a negative and positive influence on the experiences that children currently have when visiting the hospital for treatment. It shows that, at the children’s department of Reinier de Graaf, the medical staff already provides good support to children and their parents, by preparing them for and guiding them through treatment with care. This ensures a reduction in the initial stress and anxiety experienced by the child. However, the medical appearance of their treatment room causes the child and its parents to feel uncomfortable. The high amount of negative stimuli that is present in the treatment room, caused by the medical equipment, reinforces the initial stress of the child. This is in conflict with the effect that the medical staff tries to achieve and negates their efforts. In this master thesis a solution to this problem is explored, which resulted in the concept of Treatment Tales.
Treatment Tales transform a visit to the treatment room into an engaging and lively experience for children and their parents. This is achieved by turning the room into a fantasy world that comes to life during their time in the room. It is visualized with an illustration on the wall, which becomes dynamic with the use of projection and audio fragments of calming nature sounds. A short tale is printed to introduce the story behind the dynamic illustration. This tale can be read to the child before or during the treatment.
Treatment Tales makes children and their parents feel more comfortable before and during the procedure and reduces their level of stress and anxiety. The ultimate goal is to improve the treatment experience and to decrease risk of traumatic experiences. This is achieved by creating a friendlier atmosphere in the treatment room, by providing a distraction for the children, and by providing opportunities for the parents and the other people in the room to be engaged.
Altogether these components provide a system that creates a layered experience by providing visual, audio, physical, and interactive distractions. This is desired, as the research that was done within this project has shown that a layered and dynamic experience captures the attention for a longer period of time. Additionally, it provides a solution that stays interesting for children that visit the hospital on a regular base, because the animations and the stories can be easily changed and updated. Overall, Treatment Tales provide an easily implemented and effective solution to transform a clinical treatment room to a child-friendly environment.