BACKGROUND: Students living with a chronically ill family member may experience significant pressure, stress, and depression due to their caregiving situation. This may also lead to them delaying or dropping out of school when the combination of being a caregiver and their education program are too demanding. This survey study aims to explore the consequences for students of bachelor or vocational education programs when they are growing up with a chronically ill family member and the influence of various background characteristics and risk factors.METHODS: A survey was sent to 5997 students (aged 16-25 years) enrolled in bachelor or vocational education programs in the north of the Netherlands. The content of the survey was based on a literature study and consultation with experts. Descriptive statistics, Chi-square tests, and logistic regression analyses were performed.RESULTS: A total of 1237 students (21%) responded to the survey. A sub group of 237 (19%) students (mean age 21(2.2); 87% female) identified themselves as growing up with a chronically ill family member. More than half (54.9%) of these students indicated that they experienced negative consequences in daily life. A significant association (OR .42, p < .02) was found for these consequences and the level of education for which attending vocational education yields a higher risk. In addition, growing up with a mentally ill family member was associated with a 2.74 (p = .04) greater risk of experiencing negative consequences in daily life compared to students living with a family member with a physical disorder or multiple disorders.CONCLUSION: Since a substantial number of students growing up with a chronically ill family member indicate serious physical, mental, and social consequences as a result of this care situation, awareness for this specific age-group is needed. Students with a mentally ill family member and students undertaking vocational education appear to be especially at risk. Further research is required in order to gain insight that is more in-depth into the exact type of problems that these students encounter and the specific needs that they have regarding support.
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CHI PLAY '20, November 2–4, 2020, Virtual Event, Canada We have built and implemented a set of metaphors for breathing games by involving children and experts. These games are made to facilitate prevention of asthma exacerbation via regular monitoring of children with asthma through spirometry at home. To instruct and trigger children to execute the (unsupervised) spirometry correctly, we have created interactive metaphors that respond in real-time to the child’s inhalation and exhalation. Eleven metaphors have been developed in detail. Three metaphors have been fully implemented based on current guidelines for spirometry and were tested with 30 asthmatic children. Each includes multi-target incentives, responding to three different target values (inhalation, peak expiration, and complete exhalation). We postulate that the metaphors should use separate goals for these targets, have independent responses, and allow to also go beyond expected values for each of these targets. From the selected metaphors, most children preferred a dragon breathing fire and a soccer player kicking a ball into a goal as a metaphor; least liked were blowing seeds of a dandelion and applying lotion to a dog to grow its hair. Based on this project we discuss the potential and benefits of a suite-of-games approach: multiple games that each can be selected and adapted depending on personal capabilities and interests.
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Sustaining historical buildings does not always align with the ambition to promote sustainability in the built environment. In this paper we explore the dynamics and strategies that spring from this basic tension, by investigating the differences and similarities between expert’s valuation and peoples’ valuation of historical buildings, as well as their views on energy efficiency. Our paper highlights mediaeval churches in Groningen, which represent an important European heritage. We cooperate closely with the SOGK, a regional organization that is taking up the challenge of maintaining these churches in a region that is depopulating, secularizing and, to all that, suffering from earthquakes.
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-Chatbots are being used at an increasing rate, for instance, for simple Q&A conversations, flight reservations, online shopping and news aggregation. However, users expect to be served as effective and reliable as they were with human-based systems and are unforgiving once the system fails to understand them, engage them or show them human empathy. This problem is more prominent when the technology is used in domains such as health care, where empathy and the ability to give emotional support are most essential during interaction with the person. Empathy, however, is a unique human skill, and conversational agents such as chatbots cannot yet express empathy in nuanced ways to account for its complex nature and quality. This project focuses on designing emotionally supportive conversational agents within the mental health domain. We take a user-centered co-creation approach to focus on the mental health problems of sexual assault victims. This group is chosen specifically, because of the high rate of the sexual assault incidents and its lifetime destructive effects on the victim and the fact that although early intervention and treatment is necessary to prevent future mental health problems, these incidents largely go unreported due to the stigma attached to sexual assault. On the other hand, research shows that people feel more comfortable talking to chatbots about intimate topics since they feel no fear of judgment. We think an emotionally supportive and empathic chatbot specifically designed to encourage self-disclosure among sexual assault victims could help those who remain silent in fear of negative evaluation and empower them to process their experience better and take the necessary steps towards treatment early on.
