User Research · Experience Design · Interactive Narratives · Medical Play · Design for Healthcare
"Noa Medical Play Kit" is an interactive-ludic tool that allows families with children ages 3 to 5 to better emotionally and psychologically prepare in advance for the child's upcoming vaccination procedures. The kit helps both children and parents prepare beforehand by addressing their fears and doubts regarding the upcoming procedure. It particularly aids the child in familiarizing themself with vaccines in a fun and approachable way. The kit aims to reduce anxiety and fear before the procedure, so as to allow for a better experience and a safer environment for everyone involved in the child’s vaccination: the child, the parents, and the medical staff.
<aside> 👤 Role: UX researcher & UX designer
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<aside> 📆 Year: 2019 - 2020
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<aside> ⌛ Project duration: 8 months
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<aside> 📄 Type: BA’s Graduation Project
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How does this problem emerge? ◌ ·
Getting a shot is probably one of the most fearful experiences a child experiences during their infancy. Medical syringes are more than often viewed in the eyes of children as generators of pain. Spawning all sorts of negative reactions from children such as screaming, crying, kicking, punching, and bitting, among others. Reactions that can cause the delay and complication of immunization procedures (most commonly known as vaccinations) for everyone involved: the child, his/her parents, and the medical staff in charge. In a worst-case scenario, it can also lead to accidents where someone gets hurt – which is of course something no one wants to happen in any medical scenario.
Besides the immediate possible negative reactions, research has also found that living bad experiences with injections in childhood can lead to the development of needle phobia, childhood trauma, and future attitudes of rejection of procedures that make use of medical syringes. This is are highly negative consequences that can affect the life of a person, not just during their childhood, but throughout the entirety of their life. An issue that becomes particularly evident for medical staff – such as nurses – who day to day face the consequences of extreme fear and aversion towards syringes, posing difficulties for them in regards to performing their jobs in a safe and efficient matter, but also in regards to hindering the patients own safety and wellbeing.
In Colombia there hasn’t been any sort of intervention through design or technology that targets this topic, however, there have been initiatives in the United States and Europe that have explored alternatives such as serious games, medical play, among other strategies to alleviate this problem to a certain extent. These solutions in their majority, however, attempt to do this by distracting the child rather than educating them or providing a deeper level of accompaniment that can last beyond the moment of that particular vaccine.
To find a way to support every actor involved during pediatric vaccination procedures in the hope that, by addressing this early experience with medical syringes, we could minimize or avoid the development of future fear and avoidance behaviors towards needles employed in medical procedures.
<aside> 🗯️ Questions we needed to answer:
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