Children’s perspectives on pain-logging: Insights from a Co-Design Approach

Pain is an essential indicator of health and guides clinical treatments. Logging pain is important in supporting this. However, there is little research into pre-adolescent children’s pain logging tools. Utilising the Bluebells method to engage children as co-designers, we gathered children’s perspectives on pain-logging tools; in the first workshop by using tangible design approaches to support creative thinking, and in the second workshop by discussing developed prototypes based on the children’s designs. Our findings highlight design concepts that the research team – despite many years of pain-related research – had not considered in the context of paediatric logging, namely a) prioritizing children’s privacy in social settings while using pain-logging tools; b) emphasizing personalization to boost engagement; and c) logging general wellbeing of children alongside pain intensity to collect more insightful data. These findings thus demonstrate the value of co-designing pain-logging technologies with children.