Co-Designing Mobile Serious Games to Support Patients With Psoriatic Arthritis and Chronic Pain: Mixed Methods Study

Area of Science:

• Digital Health Interventions
• Serious Games for Health
• Psoriatic Arthritis Management

Background:

• Psoriatic arthritis (PsA) patients experience chronic pain impacting well-being and function.
• Existing symptom-tracking apps lack engaging, therapeutic digital interventions for PsA pain.
• Serious games present a novel approach to enhance patient engagement and therapeutic outcomes in clinical care.

Purpose of the Study:

• To co-design mobile serious games (NoPain Games) tailored for PsA patients to manage chronic pain.
• To identify therapeutic priorities and refine game mechanics through expert and patient input.
• To assess the usability of serious game prototypes for personalized, accessible digital interventions.

Main Methods:

• A sequential mixed-methods design involving expert co-creation and patient usability feedback.
• Remote co-creation sessions with rheumatologists, researchers, and technical experts.
• Usability assessment of game prototypes with PsA patients using the System Usability Scale (SUS) and qualitative feedback.

Main Results:

• Co-creation identified key themes: therapeutic benefits (pain distraction, cognitive stimulation), balanced game difficulty, and accessible design.
• NoPain Game prototypes achieved a good usability score (SUS = 79), with strong learnability.
• Qualitative feedback highlighted the importance of adjustable difficulty and refined game mechanics for future iterations.

Conclusions:

• This study pioneered the co-design of mobile serious games for PsA chronic pain management, integrating diverse stakeholder input.
• NoPain Games show potential as accessible, cognitively engaging digital tools to complement conventional therapies for PsA.
• Future research will focus on refining game mechanics and evaluating therapeutic efficacy through clinical trials.