Impact of Two Types of Board Games on Drug-Use Prevention in Adolescents at Senior High Schools

A technology-assisted teaching tool with interactive features may improve the outcomes of illegal drug-use prevention strategies. This study explores augmented reality (AR) and paper board games incorporating a brief antidrug educational program for students without drug-use problems to increase their antidrug knowledge, attitude, life skills, subjective norms, perceived behavioral control, and intention to avoid using drugs. A total of 600 students were recruited, and 578 completed the intervention program and pre-and post-tests. The participants were randomly assigned to one of the following three groups: AR board game, paper board games, and comparison groups. The brief educational program consisted of two sessions. Generalized estimation equations were used to assess group differences in outcome variables. The paired t-tests were used to assess improvements in outcome variables of the two experimental groups. The study found that the students who received the brief educational program featuring the AR board game was significantly different from the comparison group in outcome variables, including antidrug knowledge (P = 0.001), life skills (P = 0.004), subjective norms (P < 0.001), perceived behavioral control (P < 0.001), and intention (P = 0.02). The group with the paper board games also revealed similar findings as to the AR board game group in outcome variables, except for antidrug knowledge. There were no group differences in antidrug attitude between experimental and comparison groups. The results of this study support the efficacy of the two types of board games incorporated with a brief educational program. Results suggest that schools can adopt AR or paper board games as learning tools to assist in drug-use prevention programs and reduce the likelihood of students using illegal drugs.