Recruiting

Virtual Reality

Sponsor:

Stanford University

Code:

NCT06911996

Conditions

Virtual Reality

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 5 - 17

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

Interventions

Virtual Reality

Study Details

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 Patients often feel depressed, disconnected from learning, and socially withdrawn.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

Study ID

NCT06911996

Start date

Jul 10, 2025

Status verified date

Oct, 2025

Completion date

Aug 31, 2026

Anticipated

Primary completion date

Aug 31, 2026

Anticipated

Eligibility Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

Sex: All

Age: 5 - 17

Healthy Volunteers: Not accepted

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

Study Design

Enrollment

100 participants

Anticipated

Intervention Model

Single group

Primary purpose

Supportive Care

Interventions and Outcome Measures

Arms

experimental: Virtual Reality Group

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.

Interventions

Virtual Reality

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 outcome measure

  • Assess the impact of VR-based field trips on the feeling of awe of the pediatric inpatient population [ Time Frame: immediately after intervention ]

Central Contacts and Locations

Central contacts

Thomas Caruso, MD, PhD

6504970927tjcaruso@stanford.edu

Astrid Suen, MMedSc

6504970927smy822@stanford.edu

Locations

Lucile Packard Children's Hospital Stanford

Recruiting

Palo Alto, California, United States, 94304

Contacts

Thomas J Caruso, MD, MEd

650-723-5728tjcaruso@stanford.edu

More Information

Sponsor

Stanford University

Last update posted

Oct 20, 2025

Last verified

Oct, 2025

Keywords

  • Immersive Learning

Trial information was received from ClinicalTrials.gov and was last updated on 2026-09-10. This information was provided to ClinicalTrials.gov by Stanford University on 2025-10-20.