The effect of playing video games on fiberoptic intubation skills

The effect on hand-eye coordination and visuospatial skills made videogames popular for training in laparoscopic surgery. Although similar effects may be true for fiberoptic intubation (FOI), it has not been studied before. The aim of this study was to investigate the effect of playing videogames with gamepad on FOI skills.

After obtaining ethical approval and informed consent, 36 anaesthesia residents with no experience on fiberoptic intubation were divided into two groups. Group C (n = 18) consisted of the residents without any videogame experience with gamepad. Group PS (n = 18) played a videogame 30 minutes/day for five days. All residents performed their first nasal FOI on a patient undergoing orthognathic surgery with no known difficult intubation under general anaesthesia under supervision of an experienced anaesthesiologist. Intubation time, success rate, pre- and post-intubation SpO2 and etCO2 values were recorded.

Intubation time was shorter (P = 0.017) and success rate at the first attempt was higher in Group PS (P = 0.045) compared to Group C. We performed multivariate linear regression analysis to investigate which independent variables (gender of residents, experience in anaesthesiology, dominant hand, study group and previous history of videogame experience) affected our dependent variable intubation time. Backward analysis revealed previous videogame playing history (previous players vs. non-players) was the only significant predictor of intubation time (P = 0.010).

Although we cannot reliably suggest using videogames as an educational tool for FOI, the results of our study showed that videogame playing history may provide an improvement in FOI time of novices in actual operating-theatre environment.