JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Serious games for health have been gaining much popularity from scholars and practitioners. However, there still remain a few questions to be addressed.

Objective:

There are two purposes in this paper. First, there is a stronger need to understand the underlying mechanisms and features of serious games for health and this paper aims to reveal it. Second, while serious games utilize a variety of persuasive strategies in the game content, it is not clear whether fear appeals, which are widely used persuasive message strategies for health, can be an effective strategy in serious games. Thus, the effect of fear appeals in a serious game was tested.

Methods:

This study tested the effects of a serious game and fear appeals on smoking-related outcomes. A total of 72 smokers were recruited. An experiment using a 2 (Media type: Game vs. Print) x 2 (Fearful image: Fear vs. No-fear) between-subjects design was conducted.

Results:

Results indicated that gameplay had greater impacts on attitudes toward smoking and intention to quit smoking compared to print-based pamphlets. Further, the game’s persuasive effects were especially pronounced when messages contained fear appeals. When fearful images were presented, participants in the game condition reported significantly more negative attitudes toward social smoking than those in the print condition, F(1, 67) = 7.28, p < .025, ηp² = .10. However, in the no-fear condition, there was no significant difference between the game and the print condition, F(1, 67) = 0.25, p > .025. Similarly, intention to quit, F(1, 67) = 4.64, p = .035, ηp² = .07, and susceptibility, F(1, 67) = 6.92, p < .025, ηp² = .09, also significant difference between the game and the print condition only when fear appeal was used.

Conclusions:

Results indicated that gameplay had greater impacts on attitudes toward smoking and intention to quit smoking compared to print-based pamphlets. Further, the game’s persuasive effects were especially pronounced when messages contained fear appeals. When fearful images were presented, participants in the game condition reported significantly more negative attitudes toward social smoking than those in the print condition, F(1, 67) = 7.28, p < .025, ηp² = .10. However, in the no-fear condition, there was no significant difference between the game and the print condition, F(1, 67) = 0.25, p > .025. Similarly, intention to quit, F(1, 67) = 4.64, p = .035, ηp² = .07, and susceptibility, F(1, 67) = 6.92, p < .025, ηp² = .09, also significant difference between the game and the print condition only when fear appeal was used.