Information Technology Reference
In-Depth Information
Preliminary analysis of the data collected from the questionnaires reveal lit-
tle change in the participants' medical adherence over the course of the Zora
intervention primarily due to the fact that the participants were already exhibi-
ting satisfactory level of adherence prior to participation in the project. However,
it became clear that patients with high severity in their illness were the ones who
used Zora the most and that participating in Zora helped in ameliorating children's
fear of follow-up clinic visits. Based on log analysis and quantitative responses to
questionnaires, we have also observed positive impact in terms of peer networking.
For example, a social worker described Zora as providing (
“
something that none of
[the patient's] Doctors or medical professionals could—a connection to other kids
who knew exactly how he was feeling and experience the unpleasant things that go
along with transplant each and every day”).
In terms of the eight dimensions presented earlier, they played out in the
following way in this study.
(1)
Curriculum
. As in the case of the multicultural summer camp, the curriculum
for the study with the posttransplant patients was designed to be one of emergent
nature. It provided guidelines for the mentors to facilitate activities throughout
the 32-week intervention period on Zora. Besides activities meant to foster peer
networking, other activities centered on the issue of medical adherence as well
as getting the participants to become more comfortable discussing their trans-
plant experience. For instance, when the moderator, a doctoral student in child
development, noticed that the participants were starting to share experiences
about their transplant history, she would encourage them to document these in
a “Transplant House.” When they would start sharing information about medi-
cation, she would encourage them to build a “Pharmacy” so they might post
and share responses to questions such as “how do you remember to take your
medication?”
While both the Transplant House and Pharmacy were included in the origi-
nal curriculum, the moderator waited until she could see the online conversation
naturally directed itself to one of these topics at which point she knew that par-
ticipants were ready to talk about sensitive issues pertaining to their health.
The components of the curriculum were conceived as general guidelines, and
new ideas for projects coming directly from the patients were encouraged and
welcomed. For example, during Halloween, participants chose to collabora-
tively build a Halloween virtual house with objects representing their own
fears.
(2)
Mentoring model
. The facilitator was a child development doctoral student with
experience in child health and a clear agenda in terms of the research and
learning goals of the project. The facilitator coordinated weekly Zora online
activities but spent most of her time, helping participants with the technical
aspect of the program, from installing it to supporting creative uses. Although
the goal was for the facilitator to progressively move toward getting the par-
ticipants to help each other, this happened very slowly as children were on
different schedules. Our mentoring model was composed of a facilitator and
