Serious Games and Gamification: Health Care Workers’ Experience, Attitudes, and Knowledge

OBJECTIVE: With the rapid advancement of digital technology due to COVID-19, the health care field is embracing the use of digital technologies for learning, which presents an opportunity for teaching methods such as serious games to be developed and improved. Technology offers more options for these educational approaches. The goal of this study was to assess health care workers’ experiences, attitudes, and knowledge regarding serious games in training. METHODS: The convenience sample consisted of 223 participants from the specialties of internal medicine and psychiatry who responded to questions regarding sociodemographic data, experience, attitudes, and knowledge regarding serious games. This study used an ordinal regression model to analyze the relationship between knowledge, attitudes, and experiences and the idea or wish to implement serious games. RESULTS: The majority of healthcare workers were not familiar with serious games or gamification. The results show gender and age differences regarding familiarity and willingness to use serious games. With increasing age, the respondents preferred conventional and traditional learning methods to playful teaching elements; younger generations were significantly more motivated than older generations when envisioning using elements of serious games in the future. CONCLUSIONS: The COVID-19 pandemic has encouraged the use of new technologies and digitalization. This study describes positive attitudes toward serious games, mainly in younger people working in health care. Serious games present an opportunity to develop new approaches for postgraduate medical teachings and continuing medical education.