Serious Games and Gamification in Healthcare: A Meta-Review

Abstract

A serious game is a type of game that is designed for a primary purpose other than entertainment. Instead, serious games are intended to achieve specific goals, such as education, training, or health promotion. The goal of serious games is to engage players in a way that is both enjoyable and effective in achieving the intended learning or behavior change outcomes. Recently, several systematic reviews on the development and application of serious games and on the application of gamification techniques have been published, which indicate high activity and ongoing progress in this area of research. Such an extensive body of review papers raises the need to analyze and extract the current state and the prevailing trends of the serious games and gamification (SGG) domain by analyzing and summarizing the systematic review articles. This study presents a systematic meta-review, i.e., a review of the 53 survey papers on the domain of serious games and gamification. The systematic review follows the PRISMA guidelines, while constructive and cross-sectional methods are used to analyze and present the results. Finally, this study identifies the future trends and challenges for the domain. As a result, the meta-review helps the reader to quickly assess the present status of SGG and serves as a reference for finding further information on each technology utilized in SGG. Using the criterion of the citations, the meta-review analysis provides insight into the quantity and academic relevance of the published SGG articles. Moreover, 53 articles published in journals were selected as important surveys in the research field. The study found that serious games and gamification techniques are increasingly being used for a wide range of health conditions and the focus is shifting towards the use of mobile and digital platforms, virtual reality, and machine learning to personalize and adapt interventions. The existing research gaps include the lack of standardization in development and evaluation, insufficient understanding of underlying mechanisms of action, limited understanding of integration into existing healthcare systems, limited understanding of specific game mechanics and design elements for promoting health behaviors, and limited research on scalability, adoption, and long-term effects. These research gaps highlight the need for further research to fully understand the potential and limitations of serious games and gamification for health and how to effectively apply them.

Healthcare professionals' perceptions of a digital parental support, Childbirth Journey, constructed as a serious game—An intervention study

“…The WHO has underscored the importance of monitoring and reporting on the development of digital innovations in public health ( 18 ), and serous game is rapidly growing area within healthcare ( 12 ). Hence, this study on the perceptions of healthcare professionals about digital support for expectant and new parents contributes valuable knowledge to this research domain.…”

“…Recent meta-review conclude that serious game is rapidly growing area that can be used to promote health behaviour ( 12 ). A digital parental support tool, Childbirth Journey , was developed as a serious game in Sweden through the collaborative efforts of researchers, clinical midwives, heads of midwifery care and a game company.…”

Making research and evaluation more useful and more interesting for information services and their users: A guide for students and practitioners

“…Increasing the response rate is generally a good aim, and if the respondents feel that they can play at the same time, that can be an advantage. Gamification is being tried in healthcare for education of both health professionals and patients (Damaševičius et al, 2023) and, in a library context, even used in the gamification of cataloguing and classification education in Nigeria (Adetayo et al, 2023).…”

Efficacy of serious games for chronic pain management in older adults: A systematic review and meta‐analysis

“…Serious games have been used to increase motivation to exercise in this group as one of the safe and extensively used pain management strategies (Brauner & Ziefle, 2020; Maskeliūnas et al., 2022). These are defined as games that engage users and increase their motivation while contributing to achievement or therapeutic goals and change in health behaviours (Damaševičius et al., 2023; Susi et al., 2015). By implementing serious games mostly to increase the motivation to exercise, this approach can also facilitate processes of change in health behaviours (Maskeliūnas et al., 2022; Vugts et al., 2020); for example, the use of serious games in the context of prescriptions or performing therapeutic activity for older adults has demonstrated significant clinical benefits in physical rehabilitation and pain management (Beltran‐Alacreu et al., 2022; Matheve et al., 2018).…”