Health specialists’ views on the needs for developing a digital gaming solution for paediatric day surgery: A qualitative study

Abstract

Aims and objectives To describe the views on the needs of health specialists to consider when developing a digital gaming solution for children and families in a paediatric day surgery. Background Children's day surgery treatment is often cancelled at the last minute for various reasons, for example due to the lack of information. Digital gaming solutions could help families to be better oriented to the coming treatment. Despite the increasing demands for mHealth systems, there is not enough evidence‐based information from the health specialist perspective for developing a digital gaming solution. Design A qualitative descriptive study was conducted. Methods Health specialists (N = 15) including 11 nurses, one physiotherapist and four doctors from different areas from one university hospital in Finland were recruited using a snowball sampling method. Semi‐structured, face‐to‐face interviews were conducted in March and April 2019. The data were analysed using inductive conduct analyses. The COREQ checklist was used to report the data collection, analysis and the results. Results The data yielded 469 open codes, 21 sub‐categories, three upper categories and one main category. The main category the digital gaming solution to support knowledge, care and guidance in children’s day surgery included three upper categories: (a) support for preoperative information and guidance, (b) support for intra‐operative information and care, and (c) support for postoperative information, care and guidance. Conclusion Digital gaming solutions could be used to help children and families to be better prepared for upcoming treatments, to support communication in different languages and to improve children’s pain management after operations. Relevance to clinical practice Evidence‐based information is important to ensure that future digital solutions answer the real needs of the staff and patients. There is a need for families and children’s views to be taken into consideration when developing digital gaming solutions in the hospital context.

A gamified mobile health intervention for children in day surgery care: Protocol for a randomized controlled trial

“…However, parents and in some cases children, need to be provided with written information concerning the pre‐, intra‐ and postoperative phases of the treatment to enhance their knowledge (Landier et al., 2018 ). The information should be in the person's own language (Rantala, Pikkarainen, & Pölkki, 2020 ) and, when provided to children, based on their age and understanding (EACH, 2016 ; Quaye et al., 2019 ). Several mHealth studies describe the development of web‐based games that prepare children for their surgery (Buffel et al., 2019 ; Chow et al, 2017 ), with several examples of approaches using virtual reality (Al‐Nerabieah et al., 2020 ; Jung et al., 2021 ).…”

“…On the other hand, a systematic review and meta‐analysis (Rantala et al., 2020 ) showed that web‐based mobile health interventions, including video clips, web‐based treatment preparation interventions and games, can reduce children's pre‐operative anxiety and increase parental satisfaction, but did not report whether these approaches were effective at reducing children's pain after day surgery treatment. According to Rantala, Pikkarainen, and Pölkki ( 2020 ), health care personnel could integrate gamification into the patient journey with the objective of increasing patients' commitment to their treatment and enabling communication between personnel and patients before a hospital visit (Rantala, Pikkarainen, & Pölkki, 2020 ). Considering the parent's view, a digital gamified solution should support the care of children, prepare both parents and children for the upcoming treatment and increase children's commitment to care (Rantala, Jansson, et al., 2020 ).…”

“…An mHealth intervention utilizing gamification can be given as an easy‐to‐use information tool for children and family (Edwards et al., 2016 ) beforehand to decrease both the families' and children's stress and anxiety (Rantala, Pikkarainen, Miettunen, et al., 2020 ; Tark et al., 2019 ) while increasing children's cooperation with health personnel (Rantala, Jansson, et al., 2020 ; Wantanakorn et al., 2018 ). Gamification can increase children's adherence to their own treatment (Edwards et al., 2016 ; Tark et al., 2019 ), whereas intra‐ and postoperative setting mHealth and gamification can increase children's immersion and be used as a distractor in a painful situation (Rantala, Pikkarainen, & Pölkki, 2020 ; Wantanakorn et al., 2018 ). In addition, having a pain scale in mobile form is useful for family and health personnel (Sun et al., 2015 ).…”

“…In addition, having a pain scale in mobile form is useful for family and health personnel (Sun et al., 2015 ). An Mhealth intervention can be used as a type of postoperative information and cooperation, medication notification (Li et al., 2019 ; Rantala, Pikkarainen, & Pölkki, 2020 ) and emergency information tool for family (Ehrler et al., 2017 ).…”

“…After an operation, children might suffer from pain for days or weeks (Lao et al., 2020 ), and parents need information concerning the medicine their children are taking, along with any possible side effects (Rantala et al., 2020 ). Pain management is important for postsurgical care, and relevant in the context of paediatric surgery because children might suffer from behavioural problems and eating difficulties after their surgery (Power et al., 2012 ).…”