Kaizen: Interactive Gaming for Diabetes Patient Education

Area of Science:

• Diabetes Management
• Health Education
• Gamification in Healthcare

Background:

• An estimated 100 million Americans have diabetes, undiagnosed diabetes, or prediabetes.
• Poorly managed diabetes can lead to severe complications.
• Effective diabetes self-care management requires adequate knowledge and skills.

Purpose of the Study:

• To explore adult patients' perceptions of a novel, gamified educational approach for diabetes self-care.
• To assess user engagement with an interactive diabetes trivia game platform.

Main Methods:

• A descriptive pilot study involving 9 focus groups with 33 adult participants who have diabetes.
• Participants engaged with an interactive diabetes trivia game (Kaizen Education) prior to focus groups.
• Focus group transcripts were coded to identify common themes.

Main Results:

• An overarching theme identified was the effectiveness of play/gaming as a learning method.
• Key themes included preferences for learning environments (clinic/home), desired learning companions (family/partners), and optimal question difficulty.
• Participants expressed overwhelmingly positive feedback on gamified education.

Conclusions:

• Gamified education is an engaging and empowering approach for diabetes self-care.
• This novel method can empower patients to lead discussions with healthcare providers, potentially "flipping" the traditional patient education model.
• A gamified, flipped clinic approach shows promise for beneficial, empowering, and engaging diabetes education.