Friends, Family and Food: Interactive Virtual Environments for Children With Food Allergies

The central goal of this project was to develop an interactive, game-based application (App) for school-aged children (aged 8-12) with food allergies (FA) that would increase knowledge, improve behavioral skills for disease management, and ultimately reduce risk of negative outcomes. An effective FA intervention for children should target content areas of food avoidance and reaction management, and across these areas facilitate knowledge acquisition, develop behavioral skills, and provide practice using these skills in social contexts. Our Friends, Family, and Food App (F3A-App), consists of four related parts: (a) an interactive, game-based application that is the core of the program, (b) the experiential scenarios in interactive environments (e.g., school cafeteria vignette) that target knowledge and behavioral skills practice in social contexts, (c) two engaging multi-level games to build skills in food avoidance (Label Learning: Like it or Lose it!) and symptom assessment (Reaction Action!), and (d) a multi-tiered reward system that uses token economy-based reinforcement to enhance motivation and engagement (SeaLife Spectacular). From a user perspective, the interactive, game-based application provides opportunities to practice behavioral skills (e.g. negotiating pressures to accept trigger foods, requesting assistance from adults, responding to teasing/bullying) in role-play situations with immediate feedback and reinforcement.

In this Phase II project, we proposed to produce a fully-developed version of the F3A-App, including added content and enhanced features, and evaluate the final product in a randomized clinical trial.

The specific aims of Phase II were:

1. To refine the F3A-App based on the user feedback and data collected in Phase I.
2. To develop and field test additional content, including two additional interactive environments (family gathering, school pot-luck); and to increase gaming complexity (i.e. more levels and options) in Label Learning: Like it or Lose it! and Reaction Action! We conducted a small open trial in which 40 children with FA, ages 8-12, used selected segments containing the newly developed content. Children used the application for 2 weeks on their home computer or tablet. Feedback about device preference and usage was used to determine our focus in the Evaluation Stage (Aim 3).
3. To assess the efficacy of the F3A-App vs. Standard Care (brief office visit and educational handouts) in a randomized clinical trial with 100 children with FA, ages 8-12. We expected the F3A-App would improve children's FA knowledge and self-efficacy to manage FA (primary outcomes) and would increase parent-child communication regarding FA management relative to Standard Care (secondary outcome). Our crossover design also enabled us to evaluate combined effects of Standard Care and the F3A-App through typical treatment channels (e.g., is the greatest efficacy found after a physician refers family to use the App after an office visit?) This Phase II STTR targeted pediatric FA, a critical public health problem of increasing prevalence. Our approach was innovative by incorporating an emphasis on behavioral skills practice using a platform that is engaging, interactive, affordable, and has high potential for broad dissemination. We envision that the F3A-App will ultimately serve as a template for interactive, game-based applications for children with other chronic conditions requiring self-management, such as asthma, diabetes, and celiac disease.

This record describes only the Open Trial portion of this Phase II STTR project.