TY - JOUR
T1 - Oral Health Education for Children: Development of a Serious Game with a User-Centered Design Approach
AU - Mendonça, Thaís Silva
AU - de Carvalho, Sérgio Teixeira
AU - Aljafari, Ahmad
AU - Hosey, Marie Therese
AU - Costa, Luciane Rezende
N1 - Publisher Copyright:
Copyright 2024, Mary Ann Liebert, Inc., publishers.
PY - 2024/8/1
Y1 - 2024/8/1
N2 - Background: Children can learn efficiently with well-designed serious games. The use of applications to promote health has proliferated, but there is a lack of scientific studies on educational games in oral health. Materials and Methods: We developed the Brazilian version of a British and Jordanian oral health education game for children from the perspectives of Brazilian specialists and users. This descriptive study, with a qualitative and quantitative approach, comprised three phases: I—Experts’ discussion of the appropriateness of the previous version of the game to Brazil; II—Development of the first Brazilian version of the game; and III—Evaluation of the first version with 15 children from 4 to 8 years of age. Results: In Phase I, the specialists agreed with the development of the Brazilian version of the game, with minor adjustments on: advice on eating; advice on oral hygiene habits, users’ age group, game characters, and game purpose. Phase II: a version with a few changes in images and recommendations, written and spoken in Brazilian Portuguese. Phase III: The global average of correct answers in the game’s tasks was 75.3%, ranging from 50.0% to 100%. Children reported having fun with the game, and most understood the content and its interface; their parents found the information relevant and enjoyed the gameplay with their children. Conclusions: The Oral Health Education Game offered basic information for preventing dental caries to Brazilian children aged 4–8 years old in an interactive and fun way; it could support professionals in improving oral health education.
AB - Background: Children can learn efficiently with well-designed serious games. The use of applications to promote health has proliferated, but there is a lack of scientific studies on educational games in oral health. Materials and Methods: We developed the Brazilian version of a British and Jordanian oral health education game for children from the perspectives of Brazilian specialists and users. This descriptive study, with a qualitative and quantitative approach, comprised three phases: I—Experts’ discussion of the appropriateness of the previous version of the game to Brazil; II—Development of the first Brazilian version of the game; and III—Evaluation of the first version with 15 children from 4 to 8 years of age. Results: In Phase I, the specialists agreed with the development of the Brazilian version of the game, with minor adjustments on: advice on eating; advice on oral hygiene habits, users’ age group, game characters, and game purpose. Phase II: a version with a few changes in images and recommendations, written and spoken in Brazilian Portuguese. Phase III: The global average of correct answers in the game’s tasks was 75.3%, ranging from 50.0% to 100%. Children reported having fun with the game, and most understood the content and its interface; their parents found the information relevant and enjoyed the gameplay with their children. Conclusions: The Oral Health Education Game offered basic information for preventing dental caries to Brazilian children aged 4–8 years old in an interactive and fun way; it could support professionals in improving oral health education.
KW - Dental health education
KW - Educational technology
KW - Gamification
KW - Medical informatics
KW - Mobile applications
KW - User-centered design
UR - http://www.scopus.com/inward/record.url?scp=85189881237&partnerID=8YFLogxK
U2 - 10.1089/g4h.2023.0055
DO - 10.1089/g4h.2023.0055
M3 - Article
AN - SCOPUS:85189881237
SN - 2161-783X
VL - 13
SP - 268
EP - 277
JO - Games for Health Journal
JF - Games for Health Journal
IS - 4
ER -
