Nurse-led inpatient education using a gamification approach for patients with mental illness: A quasi-experimental study

Objectives: Patient education while hospitalized enhances patients’ ability to manage chronic diseases, including mental disorders, promoting adherence to treatment plans. This study aimed to evaluate the effectiveness of gamification as an instructional approach for nurse-led inpatient education. Methods: A quasi-experimental study was conducted. A total of 112 participants were recruited from the Geha Mental Health Center, a tertiary mental health center in Israel, from September 2022 to June 2023 and randomly allocated to the intervention group or control group. Nurses provided health education to patients in the intervention group using gamification techniques based on traditional health education methods. Responsibilities, rights, and relevant information for hospitalized patients were written on different cards. Patients were divided into groups of 3–4, and health education was delivered through memory card games and quartet card games. Each type of game was played twice, each lasting 30 min, occurring once every two weeks. In the control group of patients, traditional health education methods were utilized. A self-developed questionnaire assessing knowledge, self-efficacy, and adherence was used to investigate the two patient groups before and after the intervention, allowing for a comparison of the results. Results: Overall, 90 patients completed the study: 45 in the intervention group and 45 in the control group. Both groups improved knowledge, self-efficacy, and adherence after the intervention (P < 0.01). Furthermore, health education based on gamification methods was more effective than conventional health education in enhancing all three aspects of patient outcomes (P < 0.01). Conclusion: Gamification is preferable to routine education for fostering patient engagement in therapeutic sessions by enhancing self-efficacy and knowledge. The findings may contribute to developing gamified educational interventions to improve the effectiveness of inpatient education.