Saia Justa Measuring the immediate Appropriation of concepts about family planning in serious game for mobile devices

Abstract

Introduction: Unwanted pregnancy remains a global challenge. Recently, m-Health has provided a new horizon for health education as mobile devices occupy a prominent place in people’s daily lives. This new perspective contributes to the development of public policies for family planning. The objective of this study was to present evidence of the immediate Appropriation of concepts about family planning, using gamification strategy, in a serious game Application. Methodology: The mobile Application used open-source technology and hybrid platform frameworks, being offered free of charge in App stores. As its strategy, the game presented sixteen situations about contraception in couples’ daily lives. For each situation, four solutions were prepared to meet dimensions related to health, family, friends or parents, pointing out their such influence on the player’s decision. Progress in learning concepts about contraception was estimated by the difference between the number of contraceptive methods known before and after the game. Results: In six months, the number of downloads was 3652, with 2809 adult players, 77% female and 84% with ages between 18 and 33 years. Considering the countries of the user: 39% were from Mozambique, 33% from Brazil, 21% from Angola and 7% from other countries. Part of the adult players (1070, 38%) completed all the sixteen challenges. Of the 650 players who reported knowing some contraceptive method previously, 117 (18%) presented a positive difference between the number of known methods before and after the game, p <0.001. Conclusion: The serious game “Saia Justa” was able to expand users access to information on contraceptive methods and to show significant evidence of immediate Appropriation of concepts, indicating the potential of this communication channel to support health education.