Digital health game on cervical health and its effect on american women's cervical cancer knowledge

摘要

We develop a digital health game, a potential standalone and/or supplementary tool to conventional static educational tools such as pamphlets and videos, to investigate its feasibility and effectiveness in disseminating truth and dispelling myths about human-papillomavirus (HPV)/cervical cancer prevention and treatment to female population in US, both native and those of Asian descent (e.g. Vietnamese and Korean). To prevent any hindrance of the language barrier and deliver the information effectively, we add multilingual feature (English, Korean, and Vietnamese) to allow each user to play the game in her own native language. In addition, we design the game to provide the information interactively with added entertainment factor, allowing the users to get immersed more readily into the gameplay and learning experiences. Our results indicate that 97% of participants regarded the game providing perceptively significant amount of information about HPV and cervical cancer prevention and treatment. More importantly, about nine out of ten participants considered the game as more effective educational tool than the traditional methods. We conclude that our game succeeds as the educational tool to provide valid information about HPV/cervical cancer to the public either as a standalone tool or as a supplement to conventional ones.