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An Introduction to the OutSMA℞T Cancer Serious Game: Current and Future Directions
ABSTRACT
Given that cancer is a challenging disease that plagues millions of individuals of all age groups and social economic status globally, developmentally appropriate education is often lacking for young people, particularly adolescents. Increasing cancer awareness and prevention education among adolescents using innovative strategies such as game-based learning is critical in reducing the burden of this disease. Adolescents are understudied in the field of cancer prevention and control, yet vulnerable as they tackle creating life-long health behavior patterns. Targeting cancer prevention education for adolescents has the potential to support long term healthy behavior and reduce their risk of cancer. This paper provides an overview of the Collaborative Research on MEdication safety and family health (CRoME) Lab’s novel game-based cancer prevention education tool. OutSMA℞T Cancer is an innovative, novel educational intervention in the form of a serious game. Serious games are educational tools that seek to impart knowledge and improve behaviors in their players. This commentary is a summary of the developmental process for the OutSMA℞T Cancer game. We describe in detail the work preceding initial game development, the current version of the game, and future directions for the game and its educational potential. The long-term goal of OutSMA℞T Cancer is to improve cancer awareness and knowledge regarding prevention behaviors in adolescents and support a lifetime of health and wellness.
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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.