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Educational games for health professionals.
E A Akl1, K Sackett, R Pretorius
1State University of New York at Buffalo, Department of Medicine, ECMC, CC-142, 462 Girder Street, Buffalo, New York 14215, USA. elieakl@buffalo.edu
Educational games may enhance health professionals' knowledge, but more research is needed to confirm their impact on performance and patient outcomes. This review highlights the need for further studies on game-based learning strategies.
Area of Science:
- Medical Education
- Health Professions Education
- Game-Based Learning
Background:
- Educational games offer potential for improving health professionals' knowledge, skills, and attitudes.
- This can lead to enhanced adherence to standards of care and better patient outcomes.
Purpose of the Study:
- To evaluate the effectiveness of educational games in health professions education.
- Assessing impact on professional performance, knowledge, skills, attitude, satisfaction, and patient outcomes.
Main Methods:
- Comprehensive literature search of multiple databases including MEDLINE, EMBASE, and ERIC up to January 2007.
- Inclusion of randomized controlled trials (RCTs), controlled clinical trials (CCTs), controlled before and after (CBA), and interrupted time-series analysis (ITS).
- Extracted data on methodological quality, participants, interventions, and outcomes, including patient and professional performance.
Main Results:
- One RCT with fair methodological quality was included from 1156 initial citations.
- The educational game, focused on infection control, significantly improved knowledge test scores (P = 0.02).
- No patient or process of care outcomes were assessed in the included study.
Conclusions:
- Current evidence is insufficient to confirm or refute the utility of educational games for health professionals.
- High-quality research is required to determine the impact of educational games on patient and performance outcomes.