A systematic review of interactive multimedia interventions to promote children's communication with health professionals: implications for communicating with overweight children

Background: Interactive multimedia is an emerging technology that is being used to facilitate interactions between patients and health professionals. The purpose of this review was to identify and evaluate the impact of multimedia interventions (MIs), delivered in the context of paediatric healthcare, in order to inform the development of a MI to promote the communication of dietetic messages with overweight preadolescent children. Of particular interest were the effects of these MIs on child engagement and participation in treatment, and the subsequent effect on health-related treatment outcomes. Methods: An extensive search of 12 bibliographic databases was conducted in April 2012. Studies were included if: one or more child-participant was 7 to 11 years-of-age; a MI was used to improve health-related behaviour; child-participants were diagnosed with a health condition and were receiving treatment for that condition at the time of the study. Data describing study characteristics and intervention effects on communication, satisfaction, knowledge acquisition, changes in self-efficacy, healthcare utilisation, and health outcomes were extracted and summarised using qualitative and quantitative methods. Results: A total of 14 controlled trials, published between 1997 and 2006 met the selection criteria. Several MIs had the capacity to facilitate engagement between the child and a clinician, but only one sought to utilise the MI to improve communication between the child and health professional. In spite of concerns over the quality of some studies and small study populations, MIs were found useful in educating children about their health, and they demonstrated potential to improve children’s health- related self-efficacy, which could make them more able partners in face-to-face communications with health professionals. Conclusions: The findings of this review suggest that MIs have the capacity to support preadolescent child-clinician communication, but further research in this field is needed. Particular attention should be given to designing appropriate MIs that are clinically relevant

A comparison of two analytical evaluation methods for educational computer games for young children

In this paper we describe a comparison of two analytical methods for educational computer games for young children. The methods compared in the study are the Structured Expert Evaluation Method (SEEM) and the Combined Heuristic Evaluation (HE) (based on a combination of Nielsen’s HE and the fun-related concepts from Malone and Lepper) with both usability and fun heuristics for children’s computer games. To verify SEEM’s relative quality, a study was set up in which adult evaluators predicted problems in computer games. Outcomes based on thoroughness (whether the analytical method finds all problems), validity (whether the analytical method uncovers problems that are likely to be true) and appropriateness (whether the method is applied correctly) are compared. The results show that both the thoroughness and validity of SEEM are higher than the thoroughness and validity of the Combined HE. The appropriateness scores indicate that SEEM gives evaluators more guidance when predicting problems than the Combined HE does

Development and evaluation of the problem identification picture cards method

In this paper the development and assessment of a new formative evaluation method called the problem identification picture cards (PIPC) method is described. This method enables young children to express both usability and fun problems while playing a computer game. The method combines the traditional thinking-aloud method with picture cards that children can place in a box to indicate that there is a certain type of problem. An experiment to assess this method shows that children may express more problems (verbally, or with a picture card, or with a combination of a picture card and a verbalisation) with the PIPC method than without this method (in which they can only indicate problems verbally). Children in the experiment did not just replace verbalisations by using the provided picture cards and some children preferred to use the PIPC method during the test instead of the standard thinking-aloud method. The PIPC method or some aspects of the method could be a good instrument to increase the amount of information expressed by young children during an evaluation

Identifying usability and fun problems in a computer game during first use and after some practice

Abstract This paper describes an experiment to discover the change in the types of detected problems and the attitude of children towards a game when user testing a computer game for young children during first use and after they have practiced with a game. Both the numbers of different types of identified problems and the severity of the problems are investigated. Based on this knowledge, practitioners could adapt the set up of their user tests to effectively find as many aspects of the game as possible that merit change, according to the aims of the developers. The study shows that usability problems caused by a lack of knowledge were more often identified during first use. Furthermore, fun problems related to a too-high challenge level may disappear after some practice, whereas fun problems caused by the game taking over control for too long while the user wants to proceed playing the game were identified more often after some practice. The study shows that the impact severity of problems detected during first use was higher than when children had more practice with a game. As a result of these changes in experienced problems the commonly used measures efficiency, effectiveness and satisfaction increased when children had practiced with the game. Finally, the study also shows that the set of most severe problems identified during first use may be radically different from the set of most severe problems identified after some practice

Predicting effectiveness of children participants in user testing based on personality characteristics

This paper describes an experiment to determine which personality characteristics can be used to predict whether a child will make an effective participant in a user test, both in terms of the number of identified problems and the percentage of verbalised problems. Participant selection based on this knowledge can make user testing with young children more effective. The study shows that the personality characteristic Curiosity influences the number of identified problems; a combination of the personality characteristics Friendliness and Extraversion influences the percentage of verbalised problems. Furthermore, the study shows that selection of children based on these criteria does not lead to finding an unrepresentative sample of the product's problems

A rare disorder or not? How a child with jaundice changed a nationwide regimen in the Netherlands

Due to global migration, there is an increased frequency of diseases, which used to be rare in Western countries. Here, we describe a striking case in order to create awareness for diseases that are known for decades but sometimes “forgotten” in Western countries, including glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. We will discuss how everyday practice can lead to serious medical problems and present general recommendations to support

A rare disorder or not? How a child with jaundice changed a nationwide regimen in the Netherlands

Due to global migration, there is an increased frequency of diseases, which used to be rare in Western countries. Here, we describe a striking case in order to create awareness for diseases that are known for decades but sometimes “forgotten” in Western countries, including glucose-6-phosphate dehydrogenase deficiency. We will discuss how everyday practice can lead to serious medical problems and present general recommendations to support