Background/Objectives: Virtual reality (VR) is increasingly used to reduce pain during pediatric needle procedures, but its effectiveness may vary by developmental stage and gender. This study evaluated whether immersive VR reduces venipuncture pain in children and adolescents and examined parent–patient agreement and gender-specific response patterns. Methods: A prospective nonrandomized clinical study was conducted within a hospital-based pediatric venipuncture service using an alternating 1:1 allocation sequence. Participants aged 4–18 years underwent venipuncture with either VR (n = 49) or standard care (n = 29). Procedural pain was measured using the Faces Pain Scale–Revised (FPS-R) with independent parent ratings. Analysis of covariance (ANCOVA) compared post-procedural FPS-R scores while adjusting for baseline pain. Exploratory age and gender-specific analyses were also performed. Results: VR led to a clear reduction in pain for children, even after adjusting for baseline scores (3.55 vs. 4.73; p = 0.003). Adolescents, however, reported similarly low pain in both groups (2.81 vs. 2.79; p = 0.60), and several mentioned that the PEGI 3 content felt too young for them, which likely limited how engaged they were. Among children, girls showed the most noticeable drop in pain, which matches the subgroup’s adjusted significance (p = 0.011). Parent–patient agreement was stronger in children (r ≈ 0.7–0.8) than in adolescents (r ≈ 0.4–0.5), and VR did not change this pattern. Most participants said they would choose VR again for future procedures. Conclusions: Immersive VR helped reduce venipuncture pain in children but had little effect in adolescents, underscoring the need for age-appropriate or more interactive VR content for older patients. Overall, these findings support using VR selectively as a distraction tool that fits the developmental needs of pediatric groups.

The integration of artificial intelligence (AI) into human-robot interaction (HRI) in healthcare has fundamentally revolutionized the emotional, social, and cognitive interaction between humans and robotic systems. This systematic review examines how AI-powered healthcare bots affect patient trust, therapeutic alliance, and user bonding. A PRISMA-compliant literature search was conducted in five major databases: PubMed, Scopus, IEEE Xplore, Springer, and MDPI, covering studies published in English between 2010 and 2025. The inclusion criteria targeted experimental research, including evaluation studies, of AI-enhanced HRI in clinical and assistive fields. Reviews, non-experimental work, and studies without AI integration were excluded. Methodological quality and risk of bias were assessed using the revised Cochrane Risk of Bias tool for randomized trials (RoB 2), while robvis was used to generate visual summaries of the risk-of-bias assessments. Meta-analysis calculated Diagnostic Odds Ratios (95% CI) for reported diagnostic outcomes. Bibliometric visualization was performed using VOSviewer. The results show that visualized and emotionally intelligent robots outperformed virtual agents in delivering emotional security and therapeutic value. However, diagnostic accuracy was low (AUC≈0.39; pooled specificity = 0.53) with substantial heterogeneity (I² ˜ 68%), and meta-regression identified no significant moderators, leaving residual variability (τ² = 0.479). Gaps between user expectations and responsiveness limited engagement, and limited longitudinal designs restricted long-term insights. RoB 2 indicated moderate methodological variability. Despite these constraints, culturally adaptive robotic systems enhance clinical communication and patient trust, underscoring the importance of personalization and emotional intelligence in future AI healthcare robots.