JMIR Publications

ABSTRACT

Background:

Vaccination is a fundamental part of public health at all levels – from local to worldwide – and it can be considered one of humanity's greatest achievements in the control and elimination of infectious diseases. Teaching immunization and vaccination is a challenge for the professor since its content can be monotonous and tiring. It is necessary to develop new approaches for teaching these themes during nursing school.

Objective:

This paper discusses the development and validation of a serious game about immunization and vaccination for Brazilian nursing students.

Methods:

This is a methodological construction and development study, of a quiz-type game. Its content was elaborated based on the Ministry of Health's 2014 Manual of Norms and Procedures for Vaccination. The theoretical models used in the development of the game were the elemental tetrad and revised Bloom taxonomy. The game named Immunitates had its heuristics and content validated with two different instruments, both on a Likert-type scale by a team of experts, while nursing students validated the game’s heuristics only.

Results:

The study included 49 experts and 15 nursing students. The values of Cronbach alpha were in all instances either equal to or greater than 0.86, demonstrating high internal consistency of the evaluation. The Content Validity Index (CVI) for the game’s heuristics ranged between 0.75 and 1 in the group of experts and 0.67 and 1 in the group of students. The game’s content reached a global CVI of 0.88. Some specific questions were pointed out by the participating groups as subject to improvement in the next version.

Conclusions:

The serious game Immunitates presents evidence of validity, and it is intended as a support tool for the nursing student in the teaching-learning process and for the nurse, a tool for continuing education.