Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: May 18, 2021
Open Peer Review Period: May 18, 2021 - Jul 13, 2021
Date Accepted: Oct 23, 2021
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Serious games in preventing sexually transmitted infections among adolescents: Systematic review about the current state of evidence
ABSTRACT
Background:
Sexually transmitted infections (STIs) represent a global health risk. Adolescents, among other vulnerable groups, are at increased risk of infection due to an identified lack of knowledge and risky sexual behavior. Given the fact that adolescents often use digital media and that serious games are considered to have the potential to change knowledge, attitudes and behavior, serious games represent an opportunity for the prevention of (STIs).
Objective:
The aim of this systematic review was to describe the current state of evidence related to 1) the effectiveness/impact of serious games and 2) perceptions/game experiences of serious games users targeting sexual health and STI prevention.
Methods:
A systematic review has been conducted in PubMed and Web of Science. Studies published from 2009 to 2021 have been included that surveyed the effectiveness of serious games on adolescent sexual health. A total of 18 studies met the inclusion criteria and where categorized according to dimensions of effectiveness and gaming experience.
Results:
Various dimensions of effectiveness and aspects of gaming experience were investigated within the primary studies. In total, nine dimensions of effectiveness have been observed: Sexual behavior, behavioral intentions, knowledge, attitudes and beliefs, self-efficacy and personal limitations, personality traits and future orientation, environmental and individual risk factors, risk perception and risk assessment, as well as normative beliefs and (social) norms. Furthermore, several dimensions related to gaming experience have been investigated in previous studies, which are motivation, acceptance, trustworthiness, comprehensibility, handling and control, perceived effectiveness, as well as satisfaction.
Conclusions:
Knowledge has already been comprehensively surveyed and a positive influence of serious games on knowledge about sexual topics is evident. The results clearly show that adolescents’ sexual knowledge was increased by the serious games interventions. However, methodological and content differences in the surveys as well as external conditions make it difficult to draw conclusions about effectiveness related to changes in attitudes and behavior.
Citation
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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.