Friends, Family, and Food: Interactive Virtual Environments for Children with Food Allergies

朋友、家人和食物：为食物过敏儿童提供的交互式虚拟环境

• 批准号: 8931759
• 负责人: Margo Adams Larsen
• 金额: $ 40.37万
• 依托单位: VIRTUALLY BETTER, INC.
• 依托单位国家: 美国
• 财政年份: 2013
• 资助国家: 美国
• 起止时间: 2013-01-01 至 2017-07-31
• 项目状态: 已结题
• 来源: https://reporter.nih.gov/project-details/8931759
• 关键词: Adoption; Adult; Affect; Age; Anaphylaxis; Area; Asthma; Behavioral; Celiac Disease; Cellular Phone; Child; Childhood; Chronic; Chronic Disease; Clinical Psychology; Collaborations; Communication; Computer software; Computers; Crossover Design; Data; Diabetes Mellitus; Disease; Disease Management; Education; Emergency department visit; Environment; Family; Family member; Feedback; Food; Food Hypersensitivity; Friends; Gastrointestinal tract structure; Goals; Health; Health Professional; Information Dissemination; Ingestion; Internet; Intervention; Knowledge; Knowledge acquisition; Label; Learning; Life; Mediation; Methodology; Motivation; Office Visits; Online Systems; Outcome; Parents; Persons; Phase; Physicians; Play; Prevalence; Psychological reinforcement; Public Health; Quality of life; Randomized Clinical Trials; Reaction; Reading; Relative (related person); Reporting; Resources; Respiratory System; Respiratory tract structure; Rewards; Risk; Role; Sampling; School-Age Population; Schools; Self Efficacy; Self Management; Skin; Small Business Innovation Research Grant; Small Business Technology Transfer Research; Social Environment; Support Groups; Symptoms; System; Tablets; Target Populations; Technology; Token Economy; Training and Education; United States; aged; base; body system; bullying; burden of illness; collaborative environment; design; efficacy testing; handheld mobile device; improved; innovation; models and simulation; next generation; parent-child communication; parental involvement; pressure; primary outcome; programs; prototype; psychoeducation; secondary outcome; skills; social; standard care; virtual

DESCRIPTION (provided by applicant): Pediatric Food Allergy (FA) is recognized as a serious public health concern that affects approximately 4-8 percent of children, with symptoms affecting multiple organ systems, including skin, the respiratory tract, and the GI tract. Food-induced anaphylaxis, which is a rapid, potentially life-threatening reaction, can occur in more serious cases. Despite the substantial burden of disease management and associated negative quality of life effects, very few resources exist to promote effective strategies for managing FA. Moreover, most resources targeting this population emphasize information dissemination and education, either in-person or via the web, and typically focus on parents, with few resources designed for affected children. The central goal of Phases I and II of this SBIR/STTR is to develop an engaging, interactive game-based intervention for school-aged children with FA that will increase knowledge, improve self-efficacy to manage the disease, and ultimately reduce risk of negative outcomes. Software-based interventions targeting children for various pediatric conditions have increased in availability and accessibility. Interactive, game-based approaches available on multiple platforms (computer, mobile devices) offer distinct advantages over traditional interventions in providing highly engaging formats of psychoeducation and skills-based practice. This Phase II application builds on the highly promising prototype of the Friends, Family, and Food App (F3A-App), produced through the successful and synergistic collaboration of our Phase I team. The F3A- App consists of four related parts: (a) an interactive, game-based application that is the core of the program, (b) the experiential scenarios in interactive environments (e.g., school cafeteria vignette) that target knowledge and behavioral skills practice in social contexts, (c) two engaging multi-level games to build skills i food avoidance (Label Learning: Like it or Lose it!) and symptom assessment (Reaction Action!), and (d) a multi- tiered reward system that uses token economy-based reinforcement to enhance motivation and engagement (SeaLife Spectacular). Feasibility and efficacy testing of our initial prototype indicated the F3A-App was very well-received by parents and children with FA, facilitated child knowledge acquisition, and increased FA self- efficacy in key areas of FA management. Qualitative reports indicated the F3A-App also enhanced communication between parents and children regarding FA management. In this Phase II project, we propose to produce a fully-developed version of the F3A-App, including added content and enhanced features, to pilot the new version in a small sample (n = 40), and to evaluate the final product in a randomized clinical trial (n=100). This intervention will surpass existing approaches for child-focused software programs in interactivity, ease of use, acceptance by parents, and promotion by health care professionals. We envision that the F3A-App will serve as a template for interactive game-based interventions for children with other chronic conditions requiring self-management, such as asthma, diabetes, and celiac disease. The promise of commercial opportunity is significant in an era in which there is an increasingly widespread access to and everyday use of computers, smart phones, and tablet technologies.

描述（由申请人提供）：儿科食物过敏（FA）被认为是一个严重的公共卫生问题，影响大约4- 8%的儿童，症状影响多个器官系统，包括皮肤，呼吸道和胃肠道。食物引起的过敏反应是一种快速的、可能危及生命的反应，在更严重的情况下可能发生。尽管疾病管理和相关的生活质量的负面影响的巨大负担，很少有资源存在，以促进管理FA的有效策略。此外，针对这一群体的大多数资源都强调信息传播和教育，要么是面对面的，要么是通过网络，而且通常侧重于父母，很少有为受影响儿童设计的资源。本SBIR/STTR的第I和第II阶段的中心目标是为患有FA的学龄儿童开发一种引人入胜的互动游戏干预，这将增加知识，提高管理疾病的自我效能，并最终降低负面结果的风险。针对儿童的各种儿科疾病的基于软件的干预措施的可用性和可获得性有所增加。在多个平台（计算机、移动的设备）上可用的交互式、基于游戏的方法在提供高度参与的心理教育和基于技能的实践形式方面比传统干预措施具有明显的优势。这个第二阶段的应用程序建立在朋友，家人和食物应用程序（F3 A-App）的高度有前途的原型，通过我们的第一阶段团队的成功和协同合作产生。F3 A-App由四个相关部分组成：（a）作为程序核心的交互式、基于游戏的应用程序，（B）交互式环境中的体验场景（例如，学校食堂小插曲），目标是知识和行为技能的做法，在社会背景下，（c）两个从事多层次的游戏，以建立技能i食物避免（标签学习：喜欢它或失去它！）和症状评估（反应行动！），及（d）多层次奖励系统，使用基于代币经济的强化措施，以提高激励和参与度（SeaLife Spectacular）。我们的初始原型的可行性和有效性测试表明，F3 A-App非常受FA家长和儿童的欢迎，促进了儿童知识的获取，并提高了FA管理关键领域的FA自我效能。定性报告表明，F3 A-App还加强了家长和儿童之间关于FA管理的沟通。在这个II期项目中，我们建议生产一个完整开发的F3 A-App版本，包括增加的内容和增强的功能，在小样本（n = 40）中试用新版本，并在随机临床试验（n=100）中评估最终产品。这种干预将超过现有的方法，以儿童为中心的软件程序的互动性，易用性，接受父母，并促进医疗保健专业人员。我们设想，F3 A-App将作为一个模板，为患有其他需要自我管理的慢性疾病（如哮喘、糖尿病和乳糜泻）的儿童提供基于互动游戏的干预措施。在计算机、智能手机和平板电脑技术日益普及和日常使用的时代，商业机会的前景非常重要。