A Co-Designed Active Video Game for Physical Activity Promotion in People With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Pilot Trial

Abstract

Background People with chronic obstructive pulmonary disease (COPD) who are less active have lower quality of life, greater risk of exacerbations, and greater mortality than those who are more active. The effectiveness of physical activity interventions may facilitate the addition of game elements to improve engagement. The use of a co-design approach with people with COPD and clinicians as co-designers may also improve the effectiveness of the intervention. Objective The primary aim of this study is to evaluate the feasibility of a co-designed mobile game by examining the usage of the game, subjective measures of game engagement, and adherence to wearing activity trackers. The secondary aim of this study is to estimate the effect of the game on daily steps and daily moderate-to-vigorous physical activity (MVPA). Methods Participants with COPD who were taking part in the co-design of the active video game (n=9) acted as the experiment group, spending 3 weeks testing the game they helped to develop. Daily steps and MVPA were compared with a control group (n=9) of participants who did not co-design or test the game. Results Most participants (8/9, 89%) engaged with the game after downloading it. Participants used the game to record physical activity on 58.6% (82/141) of the days the game was available. The highest scores on the Intrinsic Motivation Inventory were seen for the value and usefulness subscale, with a mean of 6.38 (SD 0.6). Adherence to wearing Fitbit was high, with participants in both groups recording steps on >80% of days. Usage of the game was positively correlated with changes in daily steps but not with MVPA. Conclusions The co-designed mobile app shows promise as an intervention and should be evaluated in a larger-scale trial in this population.

Effects of Serious Games for Patients With Chronic Obstructive Pulmonary Disease: Systematic Literature Review

“…The key characteristics of the enrolled studies are shown in Multimedia Appendix 2 . This review eventually consisted of 11 studies published between 2011 and 2021 with 8 RCT studies [ 18 - 22 , 30 - 32 ] and 3 pre-post studies [ 33 - 35 ]. Of the 11 studies, 3 were published in Chinese [ 21 , 22 , 32 ], and the remaining were reported in English [ 18 - 20 , 30 , 31 , 33 - 35 ].…”

“…This review eventually consisted of 11 studies published between 2011 and 2021 with 8 RCT studies [ 18 - 22 , 30 - 32 ] and 3 pre-post studies [ 33 - 35 ]. Of the 11 studies, 3 were published in Chinese [ 21 , 22 , 32 ], and the remaining were reported in English [ 18 - 20 , 30 , 31 , 33 - 35 ]. The countries undertaking the interventions varied greatly, including mainland China in 3 studies [ 21 , 22 , 32 ], Canada in 2 studies [ 30 , 35 ], the United States in 2 studies [ 33 , 34 ], Australia in 1 study [ 18 ], Italy in 1 study [ 31 ], Poland in 1 study [ 19 ], and Indonesia in 1 study [ 20 ].…”

“…However, this review, proving a potentially positive role of video games in terms of adherence, enjoyment, and various clinical outcomes, has limitations. First, it overlooks several relevant studies [ 18 - 22 ] that were published after the review was conducted. Second, the review only focuses on video games and lacks the inclusion of diverse types of serious games.…”

Who Engages and Why It Matters?

“…The necessary level of users' engagement to achieve serious games' learning and behavioral objectives remain empirical questions (Hookham & Nesbitt, 2019;Thomas et al, 2020b). Game engagement can be operationalized by the length of time a user spends on the game (time) (Gorini et al, 2015), the frequency of repeating various game features (depth) (Sharifzadeh et al, 2020), or the completion rates of all game features (breadth) (Simmich et al, 2021). Moreover, evidence is inconsistent on the relationship between the amount of time spent by patients on serious games and intended learning outcomes (Maheu-Cadotte et al, 2021;Pham et al, 2019).…”

Increasing religious tolerance levels among youth with Our Moderate Game app: Is it effective?

“…http://www.hts.org.za Open Access through the Our Moderate Game (OMG) app makes it easy for users to still be able to play at home. This game application facilitates the delivery of message goals and can provide feedback on achievements (Simmich et al 2021;Riboli et al 2022;Thai, Bang & Li 2021). Disseminating information through interactive game applications can share ideas and experiences (Al-Dmour et al 2020).…”