Health Literacy Event in Second Life to Promote Awareness about Women’s Heart Health and Heart Attack
To help promote the importance of health literacy and to raise awareness about heart health, I co-hosted an event last Sunday May 20 with Elisabeth Marrapodi/Brielle Coronet/SL (Library Director at Trinitas Regional Medical Center, a teaching hospital in New Jersey) at our main island in Second Life. During the event people were able to test their knowledge about heart attack signs and symptoms for both men and women. This was combined with live streaming bagpipe music by real life Pipe Major Rik Xaris/SL from Scotland.
This event formed part of Elisabeth’s IRB approved research study which was designed in collaboration with a nursing education team. The study focuses on improving health literacy for heart attack, stroke and commonly used medical terminology through interactive gaming within a virtual world setting and investigates whether this newly learned information influences their future health care decisions. This research study was awarded a National Library of Medicine/ National Institutes of Health Small Projects Grant and was also recognized by the Medical Library Association’s Hospital Libraries Section Award for Research. Elisabeth has presented at national and international conferences about this study.
During the event I was also able to answer questions about my own PhD study which I am currently recruiting for. My study as you know is about health literacy skills of people who access health information in a 3D virtual world, looking at how people seek out, understand and use health information and how this might influence physical world health behaviour. Information about the study can be found next to Elizabeth’s exhibit.
As of today over 40 avatars have accessed the heart health information and taken the pre and post quiz survey.
The information will be available at GCU main Sim until this Sunday 27th May Slurl http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Glasgow%20Caledonian/109/114/23
For more info please IM Brielle Coronet in SL or Me Kali Pizzaro SL
I am currently recruiting participants for my PhD. If you or someone you know has accessed health information in a 3D virtual world I would love to interview you or them for my study. This could be access to a sim with health information in the form of a game, quiz, slide show, interactive objects or a talk given by a healthcare practitioner/provider. The first phase pilot study is now complete. However, I am now recruting for the full full phase 1 study (if you have already agreed to take part and have not been interviewed I will be contacting you soon). This Phase 1 study will include being interviewed in Second Life in a private area of Glasgow Caledonian University Second Life Sim. I am particularly looking for people from UK or Europe as well as the rest of the world. If you want more information please IM me in Second Life (Kali Pizzaro) or pick up the information from
http://maps.secondlife.com/secondlife/Glasgow Caledonian/112/113/23
or email me at Evelyn.McElhinney@gcu.ac.uk
I am reaching the end of my two year action research project. However, I will be presenting the findings at the 10th Annual International Nursing Simulation/Learning Resource Centers Conference in Orlando in June. Interestingly I just met the Lecturer last week in Second Life who is presenting after me. I will also be presenting a poster on the evaluation of volunteers’ experiences of allowing nurses to take their real life health history in SL.
Andy is still working with Jan on the x-ray project which is coming along nicely.
I have also started a VW HealthEd International Community of Practice. So if you are in the health field or a learning technologist working with health practitioners and wish to join please IM me in SL: Kali Pizzaro
Below is a poster presentation from some of my fellow lecturers about research they did with 3rd year nursing students. If you have any questions about the study or the results don’t hesiate to leave us a wee reply with an email or your avatar name. Or IM me in SL – Kali Pizzaro.
Click the bottom tab to view on Slideshare if you wish.
Well the new semester starts soon. I will be doing more teaching in SL using Colin the virtual patient and his new heart and lung sounds which are embeded in his chest. This is controlled by the lecturer who can change the sounds – normal, aortic stenosis etc (great work Andy).
I will also be teaching history taking and look forward to welcoming new volunteers who let my students take their real life health history from the comfort of their homes.
This wil be the second round of my action research project. Data will be collected using student and lecturer diaries. Hope to present the results later in the year at a conference in the USA.
We are also working on a web interface which will allow us to add to the case based histories which will speak to our AIML bots and add any missing questions to the answers. This will help create and refine cases.
Well that’s me at the moment, catch you later, Kali/Evelyn
This was a small scale qualitative evaluation of the lecturers’ (researchers’) and students’ experience of using Second Life in order to learn decision-making. Students assumed Avatars (a student nurse image in Second Life) and accessed the Clinical Simulation Laboratory within Second Life following changing into nursing uniform. They then worked through a scenario based activity. Over a six week period each student carried out a communication and visual assessment of six patients in one ward based area (one session for each student). At the end of the session the student was asked to prioritise the care for these patients and explain their decisions. The students then recorded their experiences during a one-to-one semi-structured interview and focus group.
The research team acted as the students’ mentors via their individual Avatars and provided feedback and guidance to the student Avatar.
A pragmatic approach was taken that included elements of:
• Case based learning: six realistic, interactive scenarios were developed at the appropriate level for the students
• Discovery learning: students interacted with others within the clinical simulation environment providing opportunities for incidental learning
• Reflective Learning: students used interview to record activities and reflect on their relevance to nursing theory and practice
