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Educational video game improved children’s knowledge of stroke
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Children who played a 15-minute stroke education video game demonstrated improvements in stroke knowledge that were sustained for up to 7 weeks, researchers reported in a new study.
The stroke knowledge of 210 children aged 9 to 12 years at an elementary school in Bronx, N.Y., was assessed before and after exposure to an educational video game that provided information about stroke and stroke symptoms.
The Stroke Hero video game involves navigating a clot-busting spaceship within an artery and shooting down blood clots with a clot-busting drug. When the supply of clot-busting drugs runs out, players must answer stroke awareness questions to refuel. The game is synced to a hip-hop song, according to a press release.
Before and after exposure to the game, the children underwent immediate post-testing to measure their knowledge of stroke symptoms via multiple-choice questions, and stroke action through participants’ responses to hypothetical stroke scenarios. After the immediate post-testing, participants were given remote online access to the game and encouraged to play from home; 7 weeks later, they received an unannounced, delayed post-test. Two hundred five children completed the immediate post-test and 198 completed the delayed post-test.
“Our findings demonstrate that a stroke video game may be an innovative method for improving and sustaining actionable stroke knowledge among young children,” the researchers wrote.
Seventy-four percent of children had home Internet access. Among these children, 26% reported playing the game at home. Overall, the researchers observed significant improvement in all individual stroke knowledge items, along with improvement in composite scores for multiple-choice responses and for knowing to call 911 in the event of a stroke (P<.05 for all). In particular, knowledge of symptoms of sudden imbalance, facial droop and headache increased significantly between immediate and delayed post-testing. Researchers also noted that composite scores for stroke knowledge after testing did not differ according to sex. Although composite knowledge scores did not differ significantly between children who did and did not play the game remotely (P=.71), knowledge of sudden imbalance as a stroke symptom was improved among those who played the game at home (P=.03). Nonsignificant trends toward improvement in knowledge of other symptoms also were observed among those who played the game at home.
“We need to educate the public, including children, about stroke because often it’s the witness that makes that 911 call; not the stroke victim,” Olajide Williams, MD, MS, associate professor of neurology at Columbia University, stated in the release. “Sometimes, these witnesses are young children.
“Video games are fun, widely available and accessible for most children. Empowering every potential witness with the knowledge and skills required to make that life-saving decision if they witness a stroke is critical.”
Disclosure: The study was funded by the NIH’s National Institute of Neurological Disorders and Stroke. The researchers report no relevant financial disclosures.
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