Krishnan Sunanthiny, Ademi Zanfina, Malone Daniel, Abebe Tamrat Befekadu, Lim Angelina
From the Department of Cardiovascular Sciences (S.K.), University of Leicester, UK; School of Pharmacy (S.K.), Monash University Malaysia, Bandar Sunway, Selangor, Malaysia; and Faculty of Pharmacy and Pharmaceutical Sciences (Z.A., D.M., T.B.A., A.L.), Monash University, Australia, VIC, Australia.
Simul Healthc. 2025 Feb 1;20(1):61-69. doi: 10.1097/SIH.0000000000000811. Epub 2024 Aug 8.
Online education games are gaining ground in health profession education, yet there is limited literature on its costs. This study is an economic evaluation of the substitution of a face-to-face (F2F) workshop with an online escape room game teaching the same content.
A traditional F2F workshop on hepatitis management was conducted with 364 students in 2021 and was compared with a virtual self-run escape room game called Hepatitiscape™, which was used by 417 students in 2022. The outcomes were final examination and objective structured clinical examination (OSCE) scores for hepatitis stations. An incremental cost-effectiveness ratio was used to compare costs and outcomes. Student perceptions of the delivery of Hepatitiscape™ were also captured using an online questionnaire.
Delivering the hepatitis case workshop via Hepatitiscape™ yielded an additional 4.77% increase in the final examination score and a 21.04% increase in the OSCE score at an additional cost of AUD $4212 in the first year compared with F2F delivery. This equated to an incremental cost-effectiveness ratio of AUD 883 per additional score of final examination and AUD 200 per additional score of OSCE for hepatitis stations. Hepatitiscape™ became cost saving from the second year onward. Student perception data revealed their recall of content was higher owing to the iterative design of the gaming elements.
Hepatitiscape™ is likely to be a cost-effective strategy to deliver workshops that are routinely delivered F2F to test knowledge-based constructs. In addition, virtual gaming has a logistical advantage over F2F delivery in that it enhances student participation from remote locations and allows for better control and flexibility of content delivery with increasing or decreasing cohort sizes, and can have potential long-term sustainable savings.
在线教育游戏在卫生专业教育中逐渐兴起，但关于其成本的文献有限。本研究是一项经济评估，比较了用在线密室逃脱游戏替代面对面（F2F）工作坊来教授相同内容的情况。
2021年对364名学生开展了关于肝炎管理的传统F2F工作坊，并与2022年417名学生使用的名为Hepatitiscape™的虚拟自主密室逃脱游戏进行比较。结果指标为肝炎相关站点的期末考试和客观结构化临床考试（OSCE）成绩。采用增量成本效益比来比较成本和结果。还通过在线问卷收集了学生对Hepatitiscape™教学方式的看法。
与F2F教学相比，通过Hepatitiscape™开展肝炎病例工作坊，第一年期末考试成绩额外提高了4.77%，OSCE成绩提高了21.04%，额外成本为4212澳元。这相当于肝炎相关站点期末考试每提高一分的增量成本效益比为883澳元，OSCE每提高一分的增量成本效益比为200澳元。从第二年起，Hepatitiscape™开始节省成本。学生看法数据显示，由于游戏元素的迭代设计，他们对内容的记忆更高。
Hepatitiscape™可能是一种具有成本效益的策略，用于开展通常以F2F形式进行的测试基于知识的结构的工作坊。此外，虚拟游戏在后勤方面比F2F教学具有优势，因为它能提高偏远地区学生的参与度，并且在学生人数增加或减少时，能更好地控制和灵活安排内容交付，还可能实现长期可持续的成本节约。
