Play and Learn with Patients-Designing and Evaluating a Serious Game to Enhance Nurses' Inhaler Teaching Techniques: A Randomized Controlled Trial.

To describe the development and evaluation of a nurse-patient interactive serious game in improving nurses' self-efficacy and performances in teaching the correct inhaler technique. : The technology, pedagogy, and content knowledge (TPACK) framework was applied to guide the development of the serious game. The learning effectiveness of the serious game was evaluated through a randomized controlled trial that involved 46 registered nurses. Participants in the experimental group were asked to teach the inhaler technique to a standardized patient using the serious game as a teaching tool, whereas participants in the control group were asked to provide their own usual teaching to a standardized patient without the serious game. The performances of both groups were assessed based on their feedback to a standardized patient who made several errors while demonstrating the inhaler technique. Self-efficacy levels of teaching the inhaler technique were examined before and after the intervention. A significantly higher number of participants from the experimental group obtained perfect performance scores than those in the control group (65.21% vs. 21.74%, 15.18,  < 0.01). The posttest self-efficacy mean scores for the experimental group improved significantly ( < 0.001) after the intervention, and significantly higher ( < 0.05) compared to the posttest mean scores of the control group. The study provided evidence on the effectiveness of a serious game in improving the self-efficacy and immediate postintervention performances of nurses teaching the inhaler technique. This game provides a practical and accessible learning tool to help nurses ensure effective patient education.