The WOW Project (WOW): Wonders Of The World Through Virtual Reality for Hospitalized Children

NCT06911996 | Recruiting

• 1 other identifier: 80079
• Study Type: interventional
• Target: 100
• Locations: 1 country
• Sites: 1

Brief Summary

Hospitalized pediatric patients are unable to leave the hospital to engage in traditional learning environments. Patients often feel depressed, disconnected from learning, and socially withdrawn. The Stanford Chariot Program proposes a partnership with the Palo Alto Unified Hospital School at Stanford Children's Health to reignite patients' emotional well-being through learning. The WOW Project aims to use virtual reality (VR) to travel with hospitalized children to the Wonders of the World (WOW). Combining this immersive learning modality with complementary hands-on activities at the bedside, the investigators will transport them from their hospital room into a nurturing virtual environment to stimulate their emotional, mental, and social growth while they are physically healing. The investigators will evaluate their overall joy and awe of learning by using standardized emotional scales.

Conditions

Virtual Reality

Keywords

Immersive Learning

Outcome Measures

Primary Outcomes (1)

• Assess the impact of VR-based field trips on the feeling of awe of the pediatric inpatient population

  The primary outcome will be AWE measured by the AWE-SF Survey - The Awe Experience Short Form Scale. The survey contains 12 items about awe experience. Each item was rated on a 7-point scale (1 = Strongly Disagree, 7 = Strongly Agree).

  immediately after intervention

Secondary Outcomes (3)

• Change in the number of correct answers of the content knowledge

  Day 1 baseline, Day 1 immediately after intervention

• Change in a patients' well-being as measured through the World Health Organization-Five Well-Being Index (WHO-5)

  Day 1 baseline, Day 1 immediately after intervention

• Thematic analysis of the qualitative surveys including how the lesson engagement correlates to the increase in joyful learning.

  immediately after intervention

Study Arms (1)

Virtual Reality Group

EXPERIMENTAL

Participants will all receive the VR intervention and will be instructed to wear an Oculus Quest 3 headset (Meta, Inc., Menlo Park, CA) and participate in virtual field trips from Engage (David Whelan). Brink Traveler (Akin Bilgic) and Wander (John Entwistle) that are specifically designed to reignite the joy and awe of learning.

Behavioral: Virtual Reality

Interventions

Virtual Reality BEHAVIORAL

After obtaining written consent, participants will be asked to complete a brief demographic survey and pre-intervention surveys (content knowledge, and wellbeing surveys). They will then be equipped with a VR headset, Quest 3 (Meta, Inc., Menlo Park, CA) displaying the educational field trip. After the VR field trip, participants will participate in a complementary hands-on science experiment. At the conclusion of the experiment, patients will be asked to complete the post intervention surveys (i.e awe, content knowledge, and wellbeing surveys). Additionally, for the first 20 participants, 15 participants will be randomly selected and asked to participate in a 5 open-ended question qualitative interview regarding engagement of the lesson. Audio will be recorded via zoom.

Virtual Reality Group

Eligibility Criteria

• Age: 5 Years - 17 Years
• Sex: all
• Healthy Volunteers: No
• Age Groups: Child (0-17)

You may qualify if:

• Between the age of 5 and 17.
• English speaking.
• Anticipated in-patient stay for more than 1 day.

You may not qualify if:

• Legal guardian not present to obtain consent
• Child with a significant neurological condition, or major developmental disability
• Child with active infection of the face or hand
• A history of severe motion sickness
• A history of seizures caused by flashing light
• Major surgery within the last 12 hours

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Stanford University: lead

Study Sites (1)

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford

Palo Alto, California, 94304, United States

RECRUITING

Central Study Contacts

Thomas Caruso, MD, PhD

CONTACT

6504970927; tjcaruso@stanford.edu

Astrid Suen, MMedSc

CONTACT

6504970927; smy822@stanford.edu

Study Design

• Study Type: interventional
• Phase: not applicable
• Allocation: NA
• Masking: NONE
• Purpose: SUPPORTIVE CARE
• Intervention Model: SINGLE GROUP
• Sponsor Type: OTHER
• Responsible Party: PRINCIPAL INVESTIGATOR
• PI Title: Clinical Professor

Study Record Dates

• First Submitted: March 28, 2025
• First Posted: April 4, 2025
• Study Start: July 10, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): August 31, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): August 31, 2026
• Last Updated: October 20, 2025

Record last verified: 2025-10

Data Sharing

• IPD Sharing: Will not share

Locations

US (1)