Background: Children often experience anxiety and pain during minor surgical procedures, prompting the search for effective pain management strategies beyond traditional pharmaceutical approaches. This study aims to evaluate the efficacy of virtual reality (VR) as a pain reduction method in pediatric outpatient surgical interventions compared to the standard use of nitrous oxide. The research questions explore pain reduction levels, patient preferences, enjoyment during VR use, and the time limit of the VR application.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFScience is crucial for evidence-based decision-making. Public trust in scientists can help decision makers act on the basis of the best available evidence, especially during crises. However, in recent years the epistemic authority of science has been challenged, causing concerns about low public trust in scientists.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFScience is integral to society because it can inform individual, government, corporate, and civil society decision-making on issues such as public health, new technologies or climate change. Yet, public distrust and populist sentiment challenge the relationship between science and society. To help researchers analyse the science-society nexus across different geographical and cultural contexts, we undertook a cross-sectional population survey resulting in a dataset of 71,922 participants in 68 countries.
View Article and Find Full Text PDFNegative Pressure Wound Therapy (NPWT) is a treatment that promotes healing of chronic wounds. Despite high prevalence of chronic wounds in Low- and Middle-Income Countries (LMICs), NPWT devices are not available nor affordable. This study aims to improve chronic wound care in LMICs by presenting the Wound Care (WOCA) system, designed for building, testing and use in LMICs.
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