The prevalence of chronic illnesses continues to increase as does the cost of such care. Teaching self-management skills is more effective than solely providing information and teaching technical skills at improving health outcomes. Serious games for health provide an opportunity to support learning and health-related behavior change using messages and experiences in an engaging and entertaining format. We developed eSMART-HD with the intention of improving interactions between patients with chronic disorders and their health care providers. This paper describes the factors that we considered when creating eSMART-HD, a serious game for health.
Get full access to this article
View all access options for this article.
References
1.
AdamsSA. (2010). Use of “serious health games” in health care: a review. Studies in Health Technology and Informatics, 157, 160–166.
BaranowskiT, BaranowskiJ, ThompsonD & BudayR. (2011). Behavioral Science in Video Games for Children's Diet and Physical Activity Change Key Research Needs. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, 5, 229–233.
4.
BaranowskiT, BudayR, ThompsonDI & BaranowskiJ. (2008). Playing for real: Video games and stories for health-related behavior change. American Journal of Preventive Medicine, 34, 72–82.
5.
BodenheimerT, WagnerEH & GrumbachK. (2002). Improving primary care for patients with chronic illness: The Chronic Care Model, Part 2. JAMA, 288, 1909–1914.
6.
BroxE, Fernandez-LuqueL & TollefsenT. (2011). Healthy gaming – Video game design to promote health. Applied Clinical Informatics, 2, 128–142.
DixonMJ, HarriganKA, SandhuR, CollinsK & FugelsangJA. (2010). Losses disguised as wins in modern multi-line video slot machines. Addiction, 105, 1819–1824.
9.
DrorIE. (2008). Technology enhanced learning: The good, the bad, and the ugly. Pragmatics & Cognition, 16, 215–223.
10.
GaggioliA, MantovaniF, Castelnuovo, WiderholdB & RivaG. (2003). Avatars in clinical psychology: A framework for the clinical use of virtual humans. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 6, 117–125.
11.
HawnC. (2009). Games for health: The latest tool in the medical care arsenal. Health Affairs (Millwood), 38, w842–848.
12.
HoweJ.2008. Crowdsourcing. New York: Crown Business.
13.
HowellK. (2005). Games for Health Conference 2004: Issues, Trends, and Needs Unique to Games for Health. CyberPsychology & Behavior, 8, 103–109.
14.
LewisMW. (2007). Analysis of the roles of “Serious Games” in helping teach health-related knowledge and skills and in changing behavior. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, 1, 918–920.
15.
LiebermanDA. (2001). Management of chronic pediatric diseases with interactive health games: Theory and research findings. Journal of Ambulatory Care Management, 24, 26–38.
16.
LiebermanDA, ChamberlinB, MedinaE, FranklinBA, SannerBM & VafiadisDK. (2011). The Power of Play: Innovations in Getting Active Summit 2011. Circulation, 123, 2507–2516.
National Center for Health Statistics. (2013). Health, United States, 2012: With Special Feature on Emergency Care. Hyattsville, MD. Retrieved from http://www.cdc.gov/nchs/data/hus/hus12.pdf#063.
19.
RodriguezH. (2006). The playful and the serious: An approximation to Huizinga's Homo Lugens. Game Studies, 6, 1.
20.
RussTL. (2010). Programmatic and participatory: Two frameworks for classifying experiential change implementation methods. Simulation & Gaming, 41, 767–786.
21.
ThompsonD, BaranowskiT & BudayR. (2010). Conceptual Model for the Design of a Serious Video Game Promoting Self-Management among Youth with Type 1 Diabetes. Journal of Diabetes Science and Technology, 4, 744–749.
22.
ThompsonD, BaranowskiT, BudayR, BaranowskiJ, ThompsonV, JagoR & GriffithMJ. (2010). Serious video games for health: Behavioral science guided the development of a serious video game. Simulation & Gaming, 41, 587–606.
