Systematic review on health literacy through game-based educational interventions in older adults

Health literacy plays a crucial role in individual health decision making and actions, directly impacting personal health outcomes. Game-based educational interventions have emerged as new tools to motivate learning among older adults for health literacy promotion programs. However, it remains unclear whether these game-based strategies apply to health promotion interventions targeting the older adult population. This review explores the use of game-based interventions and aims to identify the strategies used in game-based educational interventions to promote health literacy among older adults. Following the Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses (PRISMA) guidelines, a systematic review was performed by searching the Airiti Library (CEPS), CINAHL, PubMed and the Web of Science Core Collection (2013-2023). Of the 814 identified records, studies with unrelated topics, literature reviews, and those that did not provide specific details on the gaming methods were excluded. Eleven studies were included in the review. The results demonstrate that game-based educational interventions can address the four components of attention, relevance, confidence, and satisfaction with 12 gamification elements, including suitability, sensation, competition/cooperation, storyline, realism, daily life practice, similar framework, level, instructor, acknowledgment, empowerment, and social interaction. Game-based interventions improve health literacy by generating data focused on older adults. Gamification elements can be used as curriculum-linked tools to improve adult education and add value to the pursuit of educational goals in communities.