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NCT Number: NCT06911996

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

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 Patients often feel depressed, disconnected from learning, and socially withdrawn.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.

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Key information

Conditions

Virtual Reality

Age range

5 year–17 year

Sex eligibility

All sexes

Study type

Interventional

Phase

Not applicable

Primary location

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford

Palo Alto, California, 94304, United States

Location status: Recruiting

Location contact

Thomas J Caruso, MD, MEd

CONTACT

[email protected]

650-723-5728

Who can participate

Healthy volunteers accepted: No

Only the study team can determine whether someone qualifies for participation.

Inclusion criteria

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

Exclusion criteria

  • 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

Treatment and study plan

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.

Primary outcomes

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

    Time frame: immediately after intervention

    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).

Secondary outcomes

  1. Change in the number of correct answers of the content knowledge

    Time frame: Day 1 baseline, Day 1 immediately after intervention

    Change in number of correct answers of the content knowledge using Bloom's Taxonomy questioning. Participants will respond to 5 questions, two questions about comprehension, one question about application, one question about analysis and one question about evaluation. Scores range from 0 to 5, with higher scores indicating the higher number of correct answer.

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

    Time frame: Day 1 baseline, Day 1 immediately after intervention

    The WHO (Five) Well-Being Index is a participant-reported outcome measure that assesses current mental well being. Questionnaire contains 5 questions . Scores range from 0 to 5, with higher scores indicating the corresponding feeling exists all the time.

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

    Time frame: immediately after intervention

    Analysis of data collected via qualitative surveys, using saturation sampling and documented coding techniques, will result in thematic descriptions how the lesson engagement correlates to the increase in joyful learning.

Study contacts

Contact information is provided by the study sponsor or research team.

Astrid Suen, MMedSc

CONTACT

[email protected]

6504970927

Thomas Caruso, MD, PhD

CONTACT

[email protected]

6504970927

Sponsors and collaborators

Lead sponsor

Stanford University

Other

Registry information

Official study title

Immersive Bedside Teaching for Hospitalized Pediatric Patient - A Prospective, Mixed-method, Cohort Study

Acronym: WOW

Important dates

Study start
2025
Primary completion
2026
Study completion
2026
First posted
Apr 4, 2025
Registry last updated
Oct 20, 2025

OpenTrials presents study information sourced from ClinicalTrials.gov. The official registry record should be consulted for the latest information.

View the official ClinicalTrials.gov record (opens in a new tab)

This listing is for discovery and informational purposes only. It is not medical advice, does not guarantee that a study is recruiting, and does not determine eligibility. Contact the study team and a qualified healthcare professional when considering participation.

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