The Effectiveness of Gamification Diabetes Education Program for Poorly Controlled Type 2 Diabetic Patients

Summary

Background: The prevalence of DM is increasing across both Asian and Western countries, in proportion to the rising aging population. Type 2 diabetic patients are the high-risk group to experience diabetes-related complications that can lead to depression, poor quality of life and even death. In the current face-to-face diabetes counseling, the patients presented with weak comprehension of diabetes knowledge. There is a gap between application of knowledge and self-efficacy behaviors. With the increased patient acuity in the recent years, it has contributed to the shortage of diabetes nurse educators to meet the demands or needs in the outpatient endocrine clinic. Often, the patients have to wait longer for their turn for diabetes education, which can result in a delay in diabetes self-management. The use of mobile health technologies had demonstrated a positive impact on diabetes-related outcomes and better self-efficacy behaviors, all of which are crucial in diabetes management.

Aims: This study is to evaluate the effectiveness of Gamification Diabetes Education Program (GDEP) on HbA1c values, self-efficacy, sense of coherence and quality of life among the poorly controlled 2 diabetic patients.

Methods: This study adopted a randomized control trial design. Based on Cohen's power analysis, one hundred and forty-eight participants will be recruited through simple random sampling. The recruitment process includes block randomization and allocation concealment. Participants will either be randomized into intervention (GDEP) group or control (current practice) group. The self-efficacy instrument, sense of coherence scale (SOC-13), world health organisation quality of life scale- brief (WHOQoL-BREF) and HbA1c values assessed the outcomes at the same time points: point of enrollment (pre) and two post-time points at 12-week and 24-week.

The significance of study: GDEP would bring about awareness on diabetes management and contribute to existing diabetes literature. It addresses the clinical significance of enhancing diabetes knowledge and motivation in self-efficacy behaviors. Hence, GDEP has the potential to close the gap between application of knowledge to self-efficacy behaviors, which in turn would result in better self-efficacy, sense of coherence and quality of life. All of these could reduce their HbA1c values and the global health care expenditure spent on managing diabetes mellitus alone. The development of GDEP is a value-added and innovative-driven packaging to close the gap and address the limitation in the current literature. It serves to transform workforce and redesign patient education process for type 2 diabetic patients.

Conditions

• Diabetic Patients, Gamification, Diabetic Education

Interventions

DEVICE

Gamification Diabetes Education Program (GDEP)

"Diabetic application" focuses on diabetes management and consists of two gamelets and consist of story-telling, case scenarios with the integration of problem-based decision-making and solving skills in diabetes management. These scenarios created are familiar to the patients and nurses - to make the games more interactive and realistic to the players (participants). Immediate feedback will be given after they select their decision. The visual reward will appear after attaining one score for each correct question. Participants can easily access and play the games several times till contents are reinforced and knowledge is retained or at their own comfort level. This game mechanics aim to motivate and assist patients to achieve their desired result and self-efficacy behaviors. It addresses the deficits from the current literature review, by aiming to be up-to-date, reliable with new updated scenarios and platform.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• Tan Tock Seng Hospital

  collaborator OTHER

• National Healthcare Group, Singapore

  lead OTHER_GOV

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

OTHER

Masking

NONE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

21 Years

Max Age

75 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

Yes

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2017-03-01

Primary Completion

2018-08-15

Completion

2018-08-15

Countries

• Singapore

Study Locations