A Scoping Review of Health Game Research: Past, Present, and Future

Abstract

Health game research has flourished over the last decade. The number of peer-reviewed scientific publications has surged as the clinical application of health games has diversified. In response to this growth, several past literature reviews have assessed the effectiveness of health games in specific clinical subdomains. The past literature reviews, however, have not provided a general scope of health games independent of clinical context. The present systematic review identified 149 publications. All sources were published before 2011 in a peer-reviewed venue. To be included in this review, publications were required (1) to be an original research, (2) to focus on health, (3) to utilize a sound research design, (4) to report quantitative health outcomes, and (5) to target healthcare receivers. Initial findings showed certain trends in health game publications: Focus on younger male demographics, relatively low number of study participants, increased number of controlled trials, short duration of intervention periods, short duration and frequency of user–game interaction, dominance of exercise and rehab games, lack of underlying theoretical frameworks, and concentration on clinical contexts such as physical activity and nutrition. The review concludes that future research should (1) widen the demographics to include females and elderly, (2) increase the number of participants in controlled trials, (3) lengthen both the intervention period and user–game interaction duration, and (4) expand the application of health games in new clinical contexts.

Physical Wellness Among Gaming Adults: Cross-Sectional Study (Preprint)

“…It is important to examine weekday and weekend gaming separately as the amount of leisure time is much more limited on weekdays compared to weekends. Finally, this study focused on adults who game, an underrepresented demographic in gaming research despite being the largest demographic of gamers [6,10].…”

“…Another limitation of this study was the small sample size, which hindered the statistical power of the analysis. Reviews on gaming health literature by LeBlanc et al [25] and Kharrazi et al [6] have identified low sample size as a consistent issue that arises in this field of research. Comparable studies by Ballard et al [7] and Weaver et al [9] also had limited sample size with 116 and 562 participants respectively.…”

“…Additionally, health-oriented gaming interventions have been primarily tested in children [4,5]. Although research on gaming has focused on children, a systematic review of health gaming research by Kharrazi, Lu, Gharghabi, and Coleman [6] found that out of 108 studies, 65 included participants no older than 20. Furthermore, after adjusting for study sample size, the mean age of participants in studies of gaming was 13 years, which is not reflective of the current gaming population.…”

Doing Age in a Digitized World—A Material Praxeology of Aging With Technology

“…We want to do this here with the example of a socalled "exergame, " which is being developed in the course of a scientific project. Exergames are a hybrid between videogames and exercise programs that aim at providing an unobtrusive and "fun" way to physically exercise (Kharrazi et al, 2012). As they are being played via bodily movement, they require certain sensors to track the user's movements.…”

The Serious Games Ecosystem: Interdisciplinary and Intercontextual Praxis

“…Additionally, a series of meta-analyses across these areas focus on the ability to draw conclusions regarding game efficacy [178,179] A propensity for adopting randomised controlled trials does not mean tha t healthcare is not subject to the same evaluation methodological draw-backs demonstrated in other contexts. For instance, these studies often have small sample-sizes, do not take into account cultural or other demographical differences, and are undertaken over a short period [180,181,182]. Furthermore, several meta-analyses demonstrated a range of mostly positive results in regards to efficacy in the fields of exercise [183], promoting healthy lifestyles [184], and diabetes self-management [185].…”