Self-efficacy Sydney: An EHWLT for young children with chronic illness

Abstract

Pediatric chronic illnesses continue to rise in the U.S. Prepubescent children often develop delays in learning about their health that can lead to unhealthy habits, mental health problems, and feelings that managing their disease is almost impossible. With health and emotional support tools often being inaccessible to families, the need for an accessible, mainstream, and fun emphatic health and wellness learning tool (EHWLT) has increased. This work-in-progress describes a web-based children's tool known as Sydney that is designed to teach young children how to manage their chronic illness symptoms using playful stories.