A Mobile Serious Game About the Pandemic (COVID-19 - Did You Know?): Design and Evaluation Study

Abstract

Background No treatment for COVID-19 is yet available; therefore, providing access to information about SARS-CoV-2, the transmission route of the virus, and ways to prevent the spread of infection is a critical sanitary measure worldwide. Serious games have advantages in the dissemination of reliable information during the pandemic; they can provide qualified content while offering interactivity to the user, and they have great reach over the internet. Objective This study aimed to develop a serious game with the purpose of providing science-based information on the prevention of COVID-19 and personal care during the pandemic while assessing players’ knowledge about COVID-19–related topics. Methods The study was conducted with the interdisciplinary collaboration of specialists in health sciences, computing, and design at the Federal University of Minas Gerais, Brazil. The health recommendations were grouped into six thematic blocks, presented in a quiz format. The software languages were based on the progressive web app development methodology with the Ionic framework, JavaScript, HTML5, cascading style sheets, and TypeScript (Angular). Open data reports of how users interact with the serious game were obtained using the Google Analytics application programming interface. The visual identity, logo, infographics, and icons were carefully developed by considering a selection of colors, typography, sounds, and images that are suitable for young audiences. Cards with cartoon characters were introduced at the end of each thematic topic to interact with the player, reinforcing their correct answers or alerting them to the need to learn more about the disease. The players’ performance was assessed by the rate of incorrect and correct answers and analyzed by linear correlation coefficient over 7 weeks. The agile SCRUM development methodology enabled quick and daily interactions of developers through a webchat and sequential team meetings. Results The game “COVID-19–Did You Know?” was made available for free on a public university website on April 1, 2020. The game had been accessed 17,571 times as of September 2020. Dissemination actions such as reports on social media and television showed a temporal correspondence with the access number. The players’ error rate in the topic “Mask” showed a negative trend (r=–.83; P=.01) over the weeks of follow-up. The other topics showed no significant trend over the weeks. Conclusions The gamification strategy for health education content on the theme of COVID-19 reached a young audience, which is considered to be a priority in the strategy of orientation toward social distancing. Specific educational reinforcement measures were proposed and implemented based on the players’ performance. The improvement in the users’ performance on the topic about the use of masks may reflect an increase in information about or adherence to mask use over time.

Impact of a Serious Game (Escape COVID-19) on the Intention to Change COVID-19 Control Practices Among Employees of Long-term Care Facilities: Web-Based Randomized Controlled Trial

“…To enhance its visibility, publicizing actions similar to those used to promote another recently developed serious game (“COVID-19 – Did You Know?) should be considered [ 68 ]. Currently, “Escape COVID-19” is freely available to play online [ 53 ], and the corresponding author can be contacted at any time to obtain a SCORM package in either French or English, while translation into other languages is pending.…”

Nationwide Deployment of a Serious Game Designed to Improve COVID-19 Infection Prevention Practices in Switzerland: Prospective Web-Based Study

“…Therefore, even though infection prevention and control procedures are simpler and easier to follow for non–health care workers, this lack of customization might explain, at least in part, the lower willingness to change infection prevention and control behavior observed in non-health care workers. Rather than modifying Escape COVID-19 even further, the use of other serious games, such as “COVID-19-Did You Know?,” which was designed to target non–health care workers from inception, should be considered [ 61 ].…”

Building an outpatient telemedicine care pilot using Scrum-like framework within a medical residency program

“…Along with the multifunctionality characteristic, the Scrum methodology has been increasingly used to form interdisciplinary teams to carry out projects involving assistance and information technology, such as creating software that improves patient care (5)(6)(7), training of health professionals (8,9), or improving the efficiency of using the Electronic Health Record (10,11), and for managing science projects (12).…”