ESTRO 2024 - Abstract Book

S5666

RTT - Patient experience and quality of life

ESTRO 2024

Transcending the boundaries of patient education in radiotherapy using VR technology.

Eric Pei Ping Pang 1,2 , Wen Long Nei 1,2 , Ru Xin Wong 1,2 , Athirah Binte Mohamed Ariffin 1 , Xiao Wei Tan 1 , Hwee Hsiang Liow 3 , Frety Jacques 4 , Wen Shen Looi 1,2 1 National Cancer Centre Singapore, Division of Radiation Oncology, Singapore, Singapore. 2 Duke-NUS Medical School, Oncology ACP, Singapore, Singapore. 3 Children's Cancer Foundation, KKH resource centre, Singapore, Singapore. 4 Nanyang Polytechnic, School of Design and Media, Singapore, Singapore

Purpose/Objective:

A virtual reality (VR) application was developed to enhance patients’ knowledge and provide them an immersive experience of the CT simulation and proton therapy environments, complementing traditional materials (e.g. booklets) used during patient briefing.

Material/Methods:

This multi-institutional project involved radiation oncologists, radiation therapists, child-life specialist, and media design academics from NCCS, KKH and NYP. Leveraging on VR technology to develop a VR patient education module to provide an immersive experience to enhance users’ understanding of the CT Simulation and proton therapy environments. The development process of the VR application is illustrated in figure 1. The VR application was piloted in a group of healthy volunteers (n=13) between Apr to Jun 2023 and the user experience of the VR application was evaluated using a validated simulator sickness questionnaire [1] consisting of 20 questions and 4-pt Likert scales.

Figure 1: Development roadmap of the VR patient education module for CT and proton environment.

Results: