Accepted for/Published in: JMIR mHealth and uHealth
Date Submitted: Feb 7, 2021
Date Accepted: Dec 20, 2021
The Effects of mHealth-Based Gamification Interventions on Participation in Physical Activity: A Systematic Review
ABSTRACT
Background:
Despite proven benefits of regular physical activity, the participation remains sub-optimal. Mobile health has become an essential medium to deliver behavior change interventions and there is a growing interest in the application of gamification in mobile health to promote physical activity participation. Gamification could use game design elements (such as points, leaderboards, progress bars, etc.) and have potential to increase physical activity motivation and engagement. However, mobile health-based gamification interventions are still emerging and little is known about the effectiveness of the such interventions.
Objective:
This systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to investigate the effects of mobile health-based gamification interventions on physical activity outcomes (eg, step counts), as well as to explore the effect on sedentary behavior.
Methods:
We searched Pubmed, Scopus, Web of Science, Embase, CINAHL (EBSCO host), IEEE Xplore from inception to 20 December 2020. Original empirical research exploring the effects of gamification interventions on physical activity participation were included. The main outcome measures were physical activity outcomes and sedentary behavior. Meta-analyses were performed using a random-effects model.
Results:
A total of 50 studies were included and evaluated in our systematic review and 15 randomized controlled trials were included for the meta-analysis. Most of the studies (60%, 30/50) combined gamification with wearable devices to improve PA behavior change and the most frequently used game elements were goal setting, followed by progress, rewards, points and feedback. Our systematic review and meta-analysis revealed mixed findings for the effectiveness of gamification interventions for improving physical activity outcomes and sedentary behavior. However, the findings were limited due to the heterogeneity across the studies.
Conclusions:
Overall, our findings provides an overview of the existing empirical research in physical activity gamification interventions and provides evidence for the effectiveness of gamification in improving physical activity participation.
Citation
Request queued. Please wait while the file is being generated. It may take some time.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.