A multimedia solution to motivate childhood cancer patients to keep up with cancer treatment

Childhood cancer is a deadly illness that requires the young patient to adhere to cancer treatment for survival. Sadly, the high treatment side-effect burden can make it difficult for patients to keep up with their treatment. However, childhood cancer patients can manage these treatment side effects through daily self-care to make the process more bearable. This paper outlines the design and development process of a multimedia-based solution to motivate these young patients to adhere to cancer treatment and manage their treatment side effects. Due to the high appeal of multimedia-based interventions and the proficiency of young children in using mobile devices, the intervention of this study takes the form of a virtual pet serious game developed for mobile. The intervention which is developed based on the Protection Motivation Theory, includes multiple game modules with the purpose of improving the coping appraisal of childhood cancer patients on using cancer treatment to fight cancer, and taking daily self-care to combat treatment side-effects. The prototype testing results show that the intervention is well received by the voluntary play testers. Future work of this study includes the evaluation of the intervention developed with childhood cancer patients to determine its effectiveness.