Empathy development through game-based learning: An investigative study on nursing professionals

Empathy is at the core of patient-centred care. Evidence has continually found that empathy helps foster therapeutic relationships and is essential in the delivery of quality healthcare. In India, many factors are barriers to empathy for nursing professionals.

DESIGN AND METHODS: The IDEO design thinking process was followed to design the game. A focus group discussion with 18 nurses helped identify relevant scenarios and barriers to empathy. A scenario of an interaction between a nurse and a cancer patient was identified to create the game. The game mechanics, rubrics, and scenarios were built based on feedback from diverse professionals consisting of doctors, nurses, and UX designers. A learner feedback form assessing usability, contextual specificity, engagement, and perceived learnability was created and its reliability was tested. The game was tested on 60 nurses, followed by administration of the learner feedback form. To assess changes in empathy, an empathy scale was administered before the intervention and seven days after the intervention on 20 nurses.

The learner feedback form was found to have Cronbach's Alpha >0.70, and therefore reliable. The responses to the learner feedback form were analysed using the Chi Square test and were found to be positive and statistically significant (p-value<0.001). The differences in pretest and posttest empathy scores were analysed using the Wilcoxon Signed Ranks test and were found to be statistically significant as well (p-value<0.001).

The positive response to the learner feedback form, and the improvement in empathy scores after the intervention, indicates that games have a potential role in teaching empathy to Nursing Professionals.