Serious “human papillomavirus vaccine” game for Malaysian adolescents: development and preliminary study

Abstract

In Malaysia, cervical cancer is the top three most common cancer among women. Vaccination and screening are mandatory for the prevention of the disease. Therefore, we aimed to develop a serious game for Malaysian adolescents, the "HPV Vaccine” game objectively to transmit knowledge about human papillomavirus (HPV), create awareness of cervical cancer, and promote HPV vaccine uptake. This game development targeted teenagers aged 10 to 17 years. We expect to complete three levels and answer all 15 questions. Inclusion criteria were Malaysian citizens, who owned a computer with connectivity to the game. We excluded those with a physical disability. This game was the first edutainment on Human papillomavirus, cervical cancer, and the HPV vaccine. We conducted a preliminary study, cross-sectionally, purposive sampling method. We recruited 20 participants; only 16 participants consented and completed the study. All participants enjoyed the wireframes of the game, with an average of 12 to 15 minutes to complete the game. Results demonstrate that participants were highly engaged with the “HPV Vaccine” game. We believe this game, is a forward technology that will beneficial for adolescents' adherence to HPV vaccination. In the future, we suggest an observational study to assess players' perspectives on this game.

Investigating the Use of Serious Games for Cancer Control Among Children and Adolescents: Scoping Review

“…Children and adolescents were the main participants represented in the articles included in this review, which aligned with this study's purpose. The adolescents age group had the greatest representation in the included studies-all (8/8, 100%) cancer prevention serious game articles [7,34,[106][107][108][109][110][111] Cancer survivors [54,57,58,80,86,87,91] 0 (0) 7 ( 13) Health professionals [60,63,66,81,82,85,93,94,97] 0 (0) 9 ( 16)…”

“…Caregivers [60][61][62][63]66,79,81,82,92,95,97,99,[101][102][103] 0 (0) 15 (27) Healthy people [7,34,66,70,75,85,91,[106][107][108][109][110][111] 8 (100) 5 ( 9)…”

“…Serious game preference [7,55,56,62,63,67,68,70,75,79,[84][85][86]90,[92][93][94][95][96][97][98][101][102][103][104]108,110,111] 4 (50) 24 (44) Treatment adherence [69,95,101] 0 (0) 3 ( 6) Cancer education [34,55,56,80,95,101,105,106,109] 3 (38) 6 (11) Healthy behavior promotion [42,54,57,60,65,74,…”

“…the 63 articles included in this study, cancer care was the serious game objective with the most research (55/63, 87%)[35,42,52,, with cancer prevention only having 8 articles (8/63, 13%)[7,34,[106][107][108][109][110][111]. The majority of the included studies were published between 2019 and 2023.…”

“…The majority of the included studies were published between 2019 and 2023. To be specific, 5 out of 8 (63%) cancer prevention serious game articles[7,106,[109][110][111] and 35 out of 55 (64%) cancer care serious game articles[35,42,54,58,59,[61][62][63]65,66,71,72,74,75,[78][79][80][81][82]85,[91][92][93][94][95][96][97][98][99][100][101][102][103][104][105] were published between 2019 and 2023. The studies were conducted in Asia, Europe, North America, and Oceania, with the majority of the studies being conducted in Europe and North America.…”