Virtual reality headsets significantly reduce children's fear of needles

Summary:
This article explains how many children suffer from a needle phobia. An innovative solution to this phobia has been suggested by Chad Rudnick, who speaks about the use of virtual reality headsets to take the emphasise off the injection the kid is receiving. A study was completed where kids aged 6-17 where supplied with a virtual reality headset and administered their injection. The study found that 94.1% of the participants answered that they would like to use a virtual reality headset again for their next injection. This highlights the fact that whilst their attention is diverted, the fear is decreased. The article also outlines the fact that most virtual reality headsets cost approximately $50 and the apps required to use them around $1. Given this, there is no reason that this method can’t be deployed on a larger scale, in order to make kids visits to the doctors a less stressful and painful experience for both the kid and their parents. The author of the article is Gisele Galoustian. Galoustian is currently media relations director at Florida Atlantic University. She has a vast experience in public relations and press releases of research information. For this piece of text the intended audience are those who are in a healthcare profession and could make use of virtual reality technology to make patients experience a less stressful one. The key theme highlighted in this text is the use of virtual reality in healthcare; making use of virtual reality in order to distract patients from the fact they are receiving treatment and thus reducing stress and fear. This illuminates the topic further as this was the first instance of a study being carried out that explored the use of virtual reality during paediatric immunisations and could act as a gateway for similar studies to be carried out in other areas of healthcare.
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Linking Articles:

This article looks at how VR and AR could transform the health sector

This piece explores how AR will make surgery safer 

This article is an initial study of VR and AR in Healthcare & medical eduction.

​This video highlights how virtual reality can be used to aid medical students  in learning about the human body.

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Key Definitions

• VR - Virtual Reality - allows for complete immersion within the experience that shuts out the real world.​ This is vital as the premise of this study is to remove the child from the stressful situation of receiving an injection to prevent or reduce a needle phobia. In this particular study augmented reality would not be as effective as it only adds a digital elements to real world through the use of a screen, usually a smartphone; this still allows the child to look from the screen to see the injection being given. 
• Paediatric immunisations -  ​ Childhood vaccines usually begin when the child is 8 weeks old right up into their teen years. Reducing fear of needles at an early age could prevent the onset on a phobia at a later age in children hence why this study is so important when it comes to a child's health. 

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Practice Based Solutions 

1. ​Select a group of children without a phobia and group of those with a phobia of needles; ideally the children selected would be younger than the study above used which used 6-17 year olds, ideally between 1-6. The reasoning behind this that babies don’t display phobias, however disruptive fears are possible in children of a young age which if persistent they can develop into phobias by the age of 4 or 5.  Monitor these groups of children over the 5 years to see if the VR unit had a positive effect on the child's experience of needles in comparison with those who did not have access to the VR units. 
   
2. Another solution would be to introduce VR in rehabilitation units, monitor a group of patients as they undergo physiotherapy for a week and ask them how they feel the session progressing. Then provide VR units with application preloaded to enhance the sessions to take the patient out of the hospital and into the outside world to see if this aids in the progression of there rehabilitation. After a week using the VR units, ask the patients the same questions as they were asked at the beginning of the study. Compare these results to to see if there is any positive correlation between the use of VR and and progression in rehabilitation.