[Improvement of healthy lifestyle habits in university students through a gamification approach].

INTRODUCTION

Health education is one of the primary tools for health promotion, especially for those that will be responsible for educating on healthy habits in the future.

OBJECTIVE

To improve healthy lifestyle habits in university students through an educational intervention based on gamification.

METHOD

A cuasiexperimental design of two groups (i.e., experimental groups and control group) with pretest and postest measurements was carried out. A 4-month intervention was implemented in 148 students from the Physical Activity and Sport Sciences university degree. Habits related to diet and physical activity were evaluated using a questionnaire (scaled from -40 a +50) and the teaching-learning process through a qualitative analysis.

RESULTS

At the end of the intervention, a very significant improvement was found in the global value of the healthy lifestyle habits of the experimental group (+13,5), highlighting the improvement obtained in its higher level of compliance in the breakfast (53,4%), in the number of diary meals (31,5%), in the reduction of the consumption of soft-drinks (19,2%) and in the increase of physical activity level, with an improvement of 12,3% of participants with respect to the baseline levels. On the other hand, no significant improvements were found in the control group.

CONCLUSIONS

An educational intervention based on gamification improves healthy lifestyle habits of the students.