Boada Imma, Rodriguez Benitez Antonio, Thió-Henestrosa Santiago, Soler Josep
Graphics and Imaging Laboratory, Escola Politècnica Superior, Edifici Politècnica IV, 17003 Girona, Spain.
JMIR Serious Games. 2020 Aug 19;8(3):e16655. doi: 10.2196/16655.
Choking is one of the causes of unintentional injury death. Gaining the knowledge of the first-aid procedure that has to be applied in case of choking can increase the chances of survival of persons with choking. Serious games can be a good channel for educating people about choking scenarios and the actions to be taken to save the persons with choking.
The objective of this study is to present and evaluate the effectiveness of a serious game designed to prevent choking and to promote the first-aid procedure that needs to be applied in case of choking.
In this study, we present a serious game as a set of minigames that reproduces the main steps of the protocol for the first-aid performed in choking. In the proposed game, the player acquires the role of a helper who has to save the person in a choking emergency by applying the main steps of the protocol. Time and score restrictions are imposed to pass each minigame. To test this game, we performed a pilot study with 48 high school students. Different tests were performed to assess the students' preferences and their knowledge on choking before and after playing the proposed game. The obtained results were analyzed using Mann-Whitney U test when a grade variable was involved and by using Fisher exact test when 2 categorical variables were involved.
The findings of our study showed that the players enjoyed the game. No statistical differences were detected when considering the gender of the player, their preferences for video games, or their previous experience in choking emergencies. By comparing the knowledge of these students before and after playing the game, we found that all the indicators of the knowledge about how to act in case of a choking emergency were improved through this serious game.
The findings of our study show that the proposed game is a good strategy for promoting and teaching first-aid procedures in choking emergencies to nonexperts in this field.
窒息是意外伤害死亡的原因之一。掌握窒息时必须应用的急救程序知识可以增加窒息者的生存几率。严肃游戏可以成为教育人们了解窒息场景以及为拯救窒息者应采取的行动的良好渠道。
本研究的目的是展示并评估一款旨在预防窒息并推广窒息时需应用的急救程序的严肃游戏的有效性。
在本研究中，我们呈现一款严肃游戏，它由一系列迷你游戏组成，再现了窒息急救协议的主要步骤。在所提出的游戏中，玩家扮演助手的角色，必须通过应用协议的主要步骤在窒息紧急情况下拯救患者。通过每个迷你游戏都设有时间和分数限制。为测试这款游戏，我们对48名高中生进行了一项试点研究。进行了不同的测试以评估学生在玩所提出的游戏之前和之后对窒息的偏好及知识。当涉及等级变量时，使用曼-惠特尼U检验分析所得结果；当涉及两个分类变量时，使用费舍尔精确检验进行分析。
我们的研究结果表明玩家喜欢这款游戏。在考虑玩家性别、他们对电子游戏的偏好或他们之前在窒息紧急情况中的经历时，未发现统计学差异。通过比较这些学生在玩游戏前后的知识，我们发现通过这款严肃游戏，关于在窒息紧急情况下如何行动的所有知识指标都得到了改善。
我们的研究结果表明，所提出的游戏是向该领域非专业人员推广和教授窒息紧急情况急救程序的良好策略。
