Video games have long been a favorite pastime of kids, oftentimes much to the disdain of their parents. However, recent studies have shown that video games might not be all bad. Using video games to help with behavioral interventions has become a popular therapy choice. Video games and apps have been developed to help combat real issues in teens such as depression as well as understanding and learning how to live with and manage diabetes. Even HIV education has been demonstrated using a video game.
PlayForward: Elm City Stores is a video game developed to help bring awareness and prevent HIV risk behaviors in adolescents. Though a small number of children are born with HIV, the risk factors generally begin once they become sexually active. Researchers completed a study documenting the results. The objective of this particular study was to describe how a technology-based intervention can yield meaningful, objective evidence of intervention exposure within a behavioral intervention.
The video game was evaluated by 166 participants and data was analyzed at three months and six months. It was developed as a risk reduction and prevention program specifically for HIV risk behaviors, both substance use, and sexual behavior, in young minority adolescents. The log files were analyzed to determine the total number of times spent playing the video game intervention and the total number of game levels completed. The data was calculated based on completion and beating the levels in the game rather than the total amount of game play time.
Completing and beating more of the game levels correlated with higher substance use knowledge scores at the 3 and 6-month follow ups. Seeming to demonstrate that the participants were not only understanding the game but also building upon and using their knowledge as they went from level to level. Definitely helping to increase the chance that they were not just understanding the game content but able to see the real life correlation.
This study helped to shed light on the potential contributions that a video intervention can add to the study of health behavior change. Interventions and understanding human behavior are complex issues and there is no one size fits all solution. However, the PlayForward study did show that data collected from playing a video game can be used to help address challenges that exist in more traditional human delivered behavioral interventions.
