Usability Analysis of a Virtual Reality Exposure Therapy Serious Game for Blood Phobia Treatment: Phobos

Phobias are characterized as the excessive or irrational fear of an object or situation, and specific phobias affect about 10% of the world population. Blood-injection-injury phobia is a specific phobia that has a unique physical response to phobic stimuli, that is, a vasovagal syncope that causes t...

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Bibliographic Details
Published in:Electronics (Basel) 2024-04, Vol.13 (7), p.1350
Main Authors: Petersen, João, Carvalho, Vítor, Oliveira, João Tiago, Oliveira, Eva
Format: Article
Language:English
Subjects:
Blood
Case studies
Computer & video games
Data acquisition
Data entry
Electrocardiogram
Electrocardiography
Fainting
Fear & phobias
Motion sickness
Phobias
Phobos
Research methodology
Sensors
Syncope
Usability testing
User experience
Virtual reality
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Summary:Phobias are characterized as the excessive or irrational fear of an object or situation, and specific phobias affect about 10% of the world population. Blood-injection-injury phobia is a specific phobia that has a unique physical response to phobic stimuli, that is, a vasovagal syncope that causes the person to faint. Phobos is a serious game intended for blood phobia treatment that was created to be played in virtual reality with an HTC Vive that has photorealistic graphics to provide a greater immersion. We also developed a console application in C# for electrocardiography sensor connectivity and data acquisition, which gathers a 1 min baseline reading and then has continuous data acquisition during gameplay. Usability tests were conducted with self-reported questionnaires and with a case study population of 10 testers, which gave insight into the previous game experience of the tester for both digital games and virtual reality games, evaluating the discomfort for hardware on both the sensor and the virtual reality headset, as well as the game regarding usability, user experience, level of immersion, and the existence of motion sickness and its source. The results corroborate that the immersion of the game is good, which suggests that it will help with triggering the phobia.
ISSN:2079-9292
2079-9292
DOI:10.3390/electronics13071350