VaccineHero: An Extended Reality System That Reduces Toddlers' Discomfort during Vaccination

In this work, we present VaccineHero, an extended reality system that aims to reduce children's discomfort during vaccination. In our proposal, the child wears a headset during vaccination and watches a VR short story. The story includes a hero touching the child's arm, and the doctor synchronises the insertion of the needle with the VR content so that the child is efficiently distracted. A clinical trial has been carried out involving two doctors and a cohort of 16 children, which showed that the use of VaccineHero reduces children's discomfort during vaccination by a staggering 40% and completely eliminates extreme discomfort. The implemented solution is extremely affordable, as it can be deployed on simple headsets or even Cardboard devices, a feature that makes it a realistic option for any paediatric practice. It can also be extended to support other medical activities that involve needles, such as blood drawing and blood donation.