Study: HopeLab’s Re-Mission Game Is Effective

The serious gaming community was buzzing today about the publication of results from a major study in the American Academy of Pediatrics’ official journal, showing that HopeLab’s cancer education and encouragement game, Re-Mission, is effective in accomplishing its objectives.

A total of 375 subjects, ages 13-29, were recruited from 34 academic medical centers in North America and Australia in 2004-05. Subjects were screened by language (if they couldn’t communicate in one of the languages Re-Mission uses (English, French, & Spanish), they were screened out), ability to follow directions (if they ignored screeners’ directions, they were screened out), and, “history of seizures as a result of photosensitivity,” (if the flashing lights of the videogame bothered them, they were screened out).

Subjects played the game at least one hour per week for three months. The control group (n = 178 ) played, “A PC version of Indiana Jones and the Emperor’s Tomb … because the play structure and controller interface closely resembled that of Re-Mission.” All subjects were given a computer. Control group subjects received a computer with only the Indiana Jones game while the experimental group subjects’ computers had both the Indiana Jones game and Re-Mission.

Here is the conclusion:

The video-game intervention [Re-Mission] significantly improved treatment adherence and indicators of cancer-related self-efficacy and knowledge in adolescents and young adults who were undergoing cancer therapy. The findings support current efforts to develop effective video-game interventions for education and training in health care.

“Treatment adherence” means subjects took their medication. Therefore, the study shows an increased willingness to continue chemo or other treatments by young cancer patients when offered the videogame intervention.

The pilot study took place in San Antonio, so local coverage was heavy. Visit the San Antonio Business Journal and WOAI for more details.

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categories AMA, Brain Science, Game Studies, Medical Games, Research, Serious Games, Video Game Research | John Rice | datetime August 5, 2008 5:16 pm

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  • By Shaping Youth, August 6, 2008 @ 1:07 am

    Thrilled to hear this! ReMission looked superb, so it’s all the more impactful to discover that it’s actually WORKING! Woohoo! Congrats to all…(HopeLab is a hero to me for their marketing savvy and media execution doing good things in this world…in fact, I wrote about their ‘Ruckus Nation’ event awhile back on Shaping Youth)

    It was brilliant as well…we’re about to pilot some virtual world/nutrition cues to tweens to see what we can get to ’stick’ via avatar, so will report back on ‘best practices’…meanwhile, here’s the link to the HopeLab piece, and thanks for the newsy post and data! :-) http://www.shapingyouth.org/blog/?p=1243

Other Links to this Post

  1. Study: HopeLab’s Re-Mission Game Is Effective — August 5, 2008 @ 5:56 pm

  2. Study: HopeLab’s Re-Mission Game Is Effective — August 5, 2008 @ 6:03 pm

  3. drquality.com » Blog Archive » Study: HopeLab’s Re-Mission Game Is Effective — August 5, 2008 @ 6:04 pm

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