Table 8.
Summary of findings for serious gaming versus other modalities of digital education. Patient or population: health professionals in education, settings: high-income countries, intervention: serious gaming and gamification, comparison: other modalities of digital education.
| Outcomes | Number of participants (number of studies) |
Quality of evidence (GRADEa) |
Comments |
| Patient outcomes (blood pressure) | 111 (1) | Lowb,c,d | One study reported better scores for blood pressure in some subgroups. Effect sizes could not be estimated due to missing data. |
| Knowledge (measures include multiple-choice questions and clinical scenario–based questions; follow-up mostly immediately after the intervention) | 403 (5) | Low | One study reported higher scores in the serious gaming group with a large magnitude of effect. Four studies reported no difference. |
| Skills (measures include performance metrics on a simulator, practical examinations, OSCEse, and self-evaluation; most studies followed up until immediately after the intervention only) | 290 (5) | Low | One study reported superior scores in the virtual reality control group compared with the serious gaming intervention group. Two studies reported no difference. Two studies reported insufficient data for calculation of effect sizes. |
| Attitudes (measured with participant-completed rating scales; follow-up immediately after the test) | 66 (1) | Low | One study reported no difference in postintervention attitudes scores between groups. |
| Satisfaction (measured with participant-completed rating scales; follow-up immediately after the test) | 245 (3) | Low | Three studies reported higher satisfaction scores in the serious gaming group than groups of other modalities of digital education. |
aGRADE: Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations.
bRated down one level for imprecision: All included studies assessing this comparison and outcome had fewer than 400 participants.
cRated down one level for inconsistency: There was considerable heterogeneity in the results without a clear explanation.
dLow quality: Further research is very likely to have an important impact on our confidence in the estimate of effect and is likely to change the estimate.
eOSCE: objective structured clinical examination.