SugarVita, a Serious Digital Game to Support Diabetes Self-Management: Results from a Pilot Randomized Controlled Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Diabetes is a growing global health burden, with increasing prevalence worldwide. Digital interventions, including serious games, may support patient education and self-management.
Objective:
To evaluate the effects of SugarVita, a serious game for people with type 2 diabetes, on diabetes-related knowledge, self-confidence, and self-management. Secondary outcomes included HbA1c, engagement, and user evaluation.
Methods:
In this pilot randomized controlled trial, 30 adults with type 2 diabetes were randomized to SugarVita plus standard care or standard care alone for 8 weeks. Outcomes were assessed pre- and post-intervention using validated questionnaires and laboratory HbA1c values. Within-group changes were analyzed using Wilcoxon signed-rank tests and between-group differences using Mann–Whitney U tests. Bonferroni correction was applied for multiple primary outcomes.
Results:
Both groups showed improvements in knowledge, self-confidence, and self-management over time, without significant between-group differences after correction. HbA1c decreased significantly within the intervention group (median 73.0 to 64.5 mmol/mol, p = 0.0067), whereas no significant change was observed in the control group. Greater total playtime was moderately associated with HbA1c reduction. User evaluations indicated high perceived educational value.
Conclusions:
SugarVita was associated with improvements in patient-reported outcomes and a significant within-group HbA1c reduction, although no significant between-group differences were observed. Clinical Trial: NCT06392178
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.