Disease-state-themed escape room simulations in undergraduate pharmacy education: A systematic review

We systematically evaluated the effectiveness of disease-state-themed escape rooms among pharmacy students, who are future pharmacists.

We carried out an extensive search across PubMed, Google Scholar, and Scopus using appropriate keywords and Boolean operators. We screened articles for eligibility, ensuring that only escape room studies themed on disease states among pharmacy undergraduates were included. Quality assessment was done using the MERSQI tool.

Of the 1147 studies screened, 7 studies published between 2017 and 2026 met the eligibility criteria. The study participants ranged from 36 to 418. The escape rooms assessed disease states such as diabetes, heart failure, cancer, HIV and hepatitis. MERSQI scores ranged from 9.5 to 11.0, with an average score of 10.1. There was a significant improvement in the knowledge assessment score on the disease topics across most studies after participating in the disease-state-themed escape room activity. The studies also showed a positive students' perception and satisfaction levels about the escape room activity, with the majority of the students expressing willingness to recommend the activity to other students. Additionally, improvements in critical thinking and collaborative learning were reported among the students.

Disease-state-themed escape rooms show promising effectiveness in learning disease topics among pharmacy undergraduates. However, the limited number of studies included in this review restricts its generalizability and calls for further research, particularly randomized controlled trials, to establish a comparison and determine their true impact on learning outcomes and long-term knowledge retention.