ICTs Effect on Parents Feelings of Presence, Awareness, and Connectedness during a Childs Hospitalization

TL;DR

This study investigates how commercial ICTs influence parents' feelings of presence, awareness, and connectedness during their child's hospitalization, highlighting the importance of rich media like video calls.

Contribution

It provides empirical insights into parents' preferences for ICTs to enhance emotional connection with hospitalized children, emphasizing the role of video communication.

Findings

Presence is less facilitated than awareness and connectedness.

Parents prefer video chat applications like Skype for better presence.

Rich media enhances parents' feelings of presence during hospitalization.

Abstract

This study evaluates how off-the-shelf commercial ICTs can contribute to creating a feeling of Presence, Connectedness, and Awareness between parents and their hospitalized child. Thematic analysis and descriptive statistics are used to analyse qualitative and quantitative data collected through a survey of thirty eight parents whose children were admitted to the Royal Childrens Hospital. Through analysis of data, Presence is found to be less facilitated through ICT than are Awareness and Connectedness. Although participants reported that voice call on mobile phones was the most common way of communication, their ideal was a video-chat application such as Skype, or a combination of Skype and TV to facilitate feeling of Presence. A strong desire to use rich media such as video-audio to help them have a greater feeling of Presence was identified in parents responses to the questionnaire.