The development and acceptability of a board game to supplement standard diabetes education at the University of Santo Tomas Hospital

ABSTRACT

Introduction@#The potential efficacy of a board game in health education has been demonstrated. This study aims to develop a simple and useful diabetes education board game for adult Filipinos with T2DM that can supplement diabetes education.@*Methods@#This study used a mixed methods design involving a multistep process to develop and evaluate the board game. The initial phase involved the generation of comprehensible illustrations. Diabetes experts including three endocrinologists, one diabetes education nurse, and one dietician and 20 patients evaluated each illustration incorporated into the game board patterned after snakes and ladders. Twenty adult patients were then recruited to play the board game. Each patient subsequently completed a survey regarding perception of the game’s acceptability in terms of usability, replay appeal, and ability to reinforce knowledge.@*Results@#The illustrations’ comprehensibility or mean correct response of participants to the illustrations was 75%. At least 50% of patients correctly identified each of the illustrations. Eighteen (56.25%) out of the 32 illustrations had a mean correct response of 75% or higher. The illustrations were perceived to depict their intended meaning (translucency). All illustrations had a median translucency score of five and above in a scale of one to seven. The game had a high median rating for acceptability of five on a scale of one to five. All the participants agreed that they liked playing the game and would recommend the game to other patients with diabetes.@*Conclusion@#The developed adult diabetes board game – “Winning at Diabetes”, is a simple, useful and acceptable supplement to standard diabetes education.