Designing a Virtual Reality Game for Promoting Empathy Toward Patients With Chronic Pain: Feasibility and Usability...

Area of Science:

• Digital health interventions
• Human-computer interaction
• Psychology and empathy research

Background:

• Digital media's impact on empathy is increasingly studied.
• Virtual reality (VR) games show potential for enhancing empathy.
• Few studies have explored VR for increasing empathy towards chronic pain patients.

Purpose of the Study:

• To develop and evaluate the VR game AS IF, designed to increase empathy for individuals with chronic pain.
• To address the stigma surrounding chronic pain by improving public awareness and understanding.
• To provide design suggestions for future VR empathy-building systems.

Main Methods:

• A mixed-methods approach was used to evaluate the VR game AS IF.
• Empathy-related outcomes were assessed through pre- and posttesting.
• 19 participants were recruited for the study.

Main Results:

• The VR game demonstrated effectiveness in enhancing implicit and explicit empathy, including emotional and perspective-taking aspects.
• A statistically significant increase was observed in the kindness subscale of the Empathy Scale (P=.001).
• The Willingness to Help Scale showed a significant increase post-gameplay (P<.001) with a large effect size (d=-1.063).

Conclusions:

• The VR game AS IF presents a promising method for designing VR experiences to foster empathy towards chronic pain patients.
• The study validates the potential effectiveness of VR interventions in improving empathy.
• Findings offer valuable design insights for future VR game development in this domain.