Examining adolescents’ opioid knowledge and likelihood to utilize an educational game to promote medication safety

Abraham, Olufunmilola; Rosenberger, Claire A.; Birstler, Jen; Tierney, Kathleen J.

doi:10.1016/j.sapharm.2021.09.005

Cited by 6 publications

(6 citation statements)

References 40 publications

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“…Adolescents most frequently reported web searches, parents, health care providers, and web-based videos as resources for medication safety information, which highlights the integral position of parents and health care professionals such as pharmacists in ensuring appropriate and correct education for adolescents [ 39 ]. In prior studies on adolescent receptiveness to using educational games to improve medication knowledge, nearly 80% of adolescent participants indicated they would be receptive to using an educational game [ 40 ]. Concordantly, this study demonstrates that parents are also receptive to the use of an educational game to educate their adolescents on opioid safety.…”

Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parents’ Perceptions of a Serious Game for Educating Families on Prescription Opioid Safety: Qualitative Pilot Study of MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity

Abraham,

Nixon,

Seitz

2023

JMIR Serious Games

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Background Opioid misuse is a pervasive, worsening problem that affects the health of people throughout the United States, including adolescents. There are few adolescent-focused interventions designed to educate them about opioid medication safety. The MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity, is a serious educational video game that teaches parents and their youths about safe opioid practices. Objective This study aimed to elucidate parent’s perceptions of MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity and its potential use by parents and their adolescents. Methods Parents of adolescents aged 12 to 18 years who live in the United States were recruited from April to October 2021 via Qualtrics research panels, social media, email listserves, and snowball sampling. The study participants played MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity for 30 minutes and then participated in a 30-minute postgame interview via WebEx (Cisco). Questions were developed and piloted to examine adults’ perceptions of the game. Participants were asked three sets of open-ended questions: (1) questions about the game and elements of the game, (2) what they learned from the game, and (3) questions about their experience with games. Audio recordings were transcribed verbatim. Interview transcripts were coded using content and thematic analysis by study team members to identify major themes and subthemes from the data. Results Parent participants (N=67) played MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity and completed a postgame interview. Analysis extrapolated four primary themes from the data: (1) participant gaming experience, (2) perception of game features, (3) educational purpose of the game, and (4) future use of the game. Most participants (n=56, 84%), had at least some experience with video games. More than half of the participants (n=35, 52%) participants, had positive reactions to the game characters and scenes depicted in MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity and stated they were realistic for adolescents. Most participants (n=39, 58%), would recommend the game to others. Significant difficulties with gameplay navigation were reported by 38 (57%) participants, as well as a slow game pace. All participants were able to accurately identify the overarching goal of the game: opioid or medication safety. The game reinforced existing knowledge for participants, though many (n=15, 22%), reported a new awareness of the need to store opioid medications in a locked area and the availability of medication disposal drop boxes at pharmacies. Participants stated that they would recommend the game for future use by families and youths in various health care and non–health care settings. Conclusions The use of a tailored serious game is a novel, engaging tool to educate adolescents on opioid safety. MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity can be used as a tool for parents and adolescents to facilitate meaningful dialogue about safe and appropriate opioid use.

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Section: Discussionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Parents’ Perceptions of a Serious Game for Educating Families on Prescription Opioid Safety: Qualitative Pilot Study of MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity

Abraham,

Nixon,

Seitz

2023

JMIR Serious Games

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“…To develop a common scale to measure the impact of MedSMA℞T, we conducted a national survey of 592 youth. 21 Results indicated that most participants reported having some prior education on what opioids are, what opioids do, and the results of misuse, but few adolescents reported having education on how to safely store and dispose of opioids. Results reiterated the need to provide education to adolescents to improve their opioid knowledge, opioid misuse knowledge, behavioral intention regarding safe opioid practices and knowledge of appropriate disposal of opioids.…”

Section: Assessing Adolescents’ Opioid Awarenessmentioning

confidence: 97%

“…In this nationwide survey 80% of youth indicated they believed playing an educational video game would increase their opioid safety knowledge. 21 …”

Section: Assessing Adolescents’ Opioid Awarenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

“…In this nationwide survey 80% of youth indicated they believed playing an educational video game would increase their opioid safety knowledge. 21 Another study aimed to create the first standardized scale that would be used to measure adolescents' knowledge, behavioral intention, self-efficacy, and awareness of opioids. Thus, the Adolescent Opioid Safety and Learning scale (AOSL) was developed through exploratory factor analysis of survey responses from 188 high school students in the Midwest.…”

Section: Assessing Adolescents' Opioid Awarenessmentioning

confidence: 99%

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An Overview of the CRoME Lab’s MedSMA℞T Families Intervention for Promoting Opioid Medication Safety among Adolescents and Parents

Abraham,

McCarthy

2023

Innov Pharm

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As the opioid epidemic unrelentingly places profound weight on pharmacists, youth, parents, and the nation at large, innovative interventions are critical to prevent potential misuse and untimely death. Adolescents are especially vulnerable to misuse behaviors due to knowledge, attitudinal, and social influences. To best resonate with adolescents, appropriate tools and technologies must be developed and deployed. Few educational tools are more ubiquitous to adolescents than video games. Video games, specifically serious games, have the potential to connect with adolescents and impart critical knowledge related to opioid safety. Engaging youth, parents, and pharmacists in the design, refinement, and evaluation of a serious game is novel and necessary for building a robust, efficacious game. This commentary describes the conceptualization, inception, development, and evaluation of a novel opioid medication safety intervention, MedSMA℞T Families. This two-part intervention is comprised of an adolescent-tailored serious game entitled MedSMA℞T: Adventures in PharmaCity, and a family-focused tool named the personalized Family Medication Safety Plan. This intervention is the first theory-based, family-focused opioid medication safety toolkit co-designed by an interdisciplinary team of researchers, game developers, behavioral health scientists, pharmacists, student pharmacists, addiction medicine physician, adolescent health physician, parents, and teens. Responses from key stakeholders (pharmacists, parents, and teens) have demonstrated positive attitudes and impressions towards both components of the MedSMA℞T Families intervention. Empirical evidence of efficacy from two separate studies denotes improvement in key concepts related to safe behavior in adolescents. Findings to date support the widespread use, implementation, and dissemination of this efficacious intervention to supporting safe opioid prescription practices in families with adolescents. In this paper, we outline and summarize our process of intervention development and use of longitudinal data to validate each step of our process. Future directions include mobile compatibility, refinement based on key stakeholder feedback, and dissemination in various clinical settings where opioid medications are prescribed and dispensed such as emergency departments, pharmacies, hospitals, and clinics.

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“…The use of serious games (SGs) is a promising approach for promoting proper opioid use and safety among adolescents [14,[18][19][20][21]. SGs are video games designed not only for entertainment, but to educate persons on a specific topic or topics, change an attitude or behavior, or create awareness of a certain issue [22].…”

Section: Introductionmentioning

confidence: 99%

Investigating the Use of a Serious Game to Improve Opioid Safety Awareness Among Adolescents: Quantitative Study

Abraham¹,

Rosenberger²,

Tierney³

et al. 2021

JMIR Serious Games

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Background The misuse of opioid medications among adolescents is a serious problem in the United States. Serious games (SGs) are a novel way to promote the safe and responsible management of opioid medications among adolescents, thereby reducing the number of adolescent opioid misuse cases reported annually. Objective This study aimed to examine the effect of the SG MedSMART: Adventures in PharmaCity on adolescents’ opioid safety knowledge, awareness, behavioral intent, and self-efficacy. Methods A nationally representative sample of adolescents aged 12 to 18 years were recruited online through Qualtrics panels from October to November 2020. Data collection consisted of a pregame survey, 30 minutes of gameplay, and a postgame survey. The pregame and postgame surveys included 66 items examining the participants’ baseline opioid knowledge, safety, use, and demographic information. The postgame survey had 25 additional questions regarding the MedSMART game. Gameplay scenarios included 5 levels intended to mimic adolescents’ daily life while educating the players about appropriate opioid storage and disposable practices, negative consequences of sharing opioid medications, and the use of Narcan. Survey questions were divided into 10 categories to represent key concepts and were summarized into concept scores. Differences in concept scores were described by overall mean (SD) when stratified by gender, race, school, grade, and age. Differences of change in concept score were analyzed using the Kruskal-Wallis and correlation tests. Results A total of 117 responses were analyzed. The results showed significant improvement on all concept scores except for Narcan knowledge (mean change -0.04, SD 0.29; P=.60) and safe storage (mean change 0.03, SD 0.20; P=.09). Female participants had greater improvement than males for safe disposal (female mean 0.12, SD 0.25 vs male mean 0.04, SD 0.17; P=.05). Male participants had higher improvement than female participants for misuse behavior (female mean 0.05, SD 0.28 vs male mean 0.14, SD 0.27; P=.04). Perceived knowledge for participants who had non-White or Hispanic racial backgrounds had higher improvement than for non-Hispanic White participants (non-White mean 1.10, SD 1.06 vs White mean 0.75, SD 0.91; P=.03). Older grades were associated with greater improvement in opioid knowledge (correlation coefficient -0.23, 95% CI -0.40 to -0.05; P=.01). There were 28 (23.9%) participants who played all 5 levels of the game and had better improvement in opioid use self-efficacy. Conclusions Our findings suggest MedSMART: Adventures in PharmaCity can be used as an effective tool to educate adolescents on the safe and responsible use of prescribed opioid medications. Future testing of the effectiveness of this SG should involve a randomized controlled trial. Additionally, the feasibility of implementing and disseminating MedSMART: Adventures in PharmaCity in schools and health care settings such as adolescent health or primary care clinics, emergency departments, and pharmacies should be investigated.

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Examining adolescents’ opioid knowledge and likelihood to utilize an educational game to promote medication safety

Cited by 6 publications

References 40 publications

Parents’ Perceptions of a Serious Game for Educating Families on Prescription Opioid Safety: Qualitative Pilot Study of MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity

Parents’ Perceptions of a Serious Game for Educating Families on Prescription Opioid Safety: Qualitative Pilot Study of MedSMARxT: Adventures in PharmaCity

An Overview of the CRoME Lab’s MedSMA℞T Families Intervention for Promoting Opioid Medication Safety among Adolescents and Parents

Investigating the Use of a Serious Game to Improve Opioid Safety Awareness Among Adolescents: Quantitative Study

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