"Can I Decorate My Teeth With Diamonds?": Exploring Multi-Stakeholder Perspectives on Using VR to Reduce Children's Dental Anxiety

TL;DR

This study investigates how VR can be used to reduce dental anxiety in children by engaging multiple stakeholders—children, guardians, and dentists—through a series of co-design workshops and interviews. Children proposed VR ideas that emphasize pre-treatment education, sense of control, and peer support, while guardians and dentists highlighted safety, educational value, and integration into clinical workflow. The authors identify design directions such as adaptive virtual exposure, bodily agency, and immersive learning, and discuss safeguarding and negotiation across stakeholders to guide practical VR development. The findings advance HCI/CSCW understanding of how to co-design VR-based anxiety management tools that empower children, involve families, and fit clinical practices, with potential applicability to other pediatric care contexts.

Abstract

Dental anxiety is prevalent among children, often leading to missed treatment and potential negative effects on their mental well-being. While several interventions (e.g., pharmacological and psychotherapeutic techniques) have been introduced for anxiety alleviation, the recently emerged virtual reality (VR) technology, with its immersive and playful nature, opened new opportunities for complementing and enhancing the therapeutic effects of existing interventions. In this light, we conducted a series of co-design workshops with 13 children aged 10-12 to explore how they envisioned using VR to address their fear and stress associated with dental visits, followed by interviews with parents (n = 13) and two dentists. Our findings revealed that children expected VR to provide immediate relief, social support, and a sense of control during dental treatment, parents sought educational opportunities for their children to learn about oral health, and dentists prioritized treatment efficiency and safety issues. Drawing from the findings, we discuss the considerations of multi-stakeholders for developing VR-assisted anxiety management applications for children within and beyond dental settings.

Figures (3)

• Figure 1: We Co-designed VR interventions to help children alleviate dental anxiety with three key stakeholders in three phases: co-design with children - warming up (a) & VR inspiration session (b)& design activity and discussion (c&d); VR experience (e) and interviews (f) with guardians; interviews with dentists (g).
• Figure 2: Three VR applications that our children participants interacted with during the study
• Figure 3: Children participants think-aloud during the design activity: (1) hoping to have peer accompany while waiting for treatment $\rightarrow$ designing a a virtual universe, where they can take spaceship to visit other children in the same situation; (2) being fear of sharp dental tools $\rightarrow$ making those tools appear in lovely shapes; and hoping to have nicely-looking teeth after treatment $\rightarrow$ role-playing as a dentist who gentaly treats a child patient look like themselves; (3) being fear of dentists $\rightarrow$ virtually fighting with the dentists in a game to vent out stress.