O uso de jogos como estratégia de educação em saúde em oncologia: scoping review

Abstract

Health education for people in cancer care is an essential component of the care provided to this public. Considering the emergence of the use of resources that favor the integration and interaction of individuals in educational practices, games are shown to be a viable option for use. The objective of this work was to map the existing scientific literature on the use of games for the health education of people in cancer care. This is a scoping review based on the method presented by the Joanna Briggs Institute. When establishing the PCC (population, concept, context) the following guiding question was asked: what is the scientific evidence on the use of games as a health education strategy for people undergoing cancer care?.The inclusion criteria were studies that met the objectives proposed by this methodological, quantitative and/or qualitative research, primary and/or secondary studies of the type: systematic reviews, meta-analyses and/or metasyntheses, published in indexed sources and in the gray literature. In addition, they should have open access or be available through the CAPES journal portal through university, with no restrictions on the language and year of publication. The final searches were conducted between March and June 2022 in the databases: Epistemonikos, MedLine via PubMed, Latin American and Caribbean Literature in Health Sciences (LILACS) via Virtual Health Library - VHL/Bireme, Scopus, Embase, Web Of Science and Cochrane Database of Systematic Reviews). In addition, the sources of gray literature were consulted: Brazilian Digital Library of Theses and Dissertations (BDTD), Catalogue of Theses & Dissertations - CAPES and Google Scholar. The descriptors and keywords "games", "cancer" and "health education" combined with each other. The final sample of this review consisted of 54 studies. These date from 2001, with the highest number of publications in the years 2018 and 2019 (n=7 per year), being mostly carried out in the American (n=27) and European (n=13) continents, with emphasis on countries such as the United States of America (n=22), Australia and Brazil (n=5 in each respective).The journals Games for Health Journal (n=5) and Journal of Medical Internet Research (n=3) presented the highest number of publications, with 78% (n=42) of these from primary data sources. These were mostly performed with children (n=24) and adolescents/young adults (n=23). Were cited 39 games and platforms/programs based on games aimed at the health education of people with cancer, being the versions of Re-Mission the most cited among them. Also pointing out the use of recreational games of the Nintendo WiiTM for this purpose. Among these only two (My Wonderful Life and Shop Talk) constituted as board games, the others being characterized as digital information and communication technologies. Different mechanics and elements were adopted in order to meet the different groups of this population, also highlighting that four games restricted their target audience considering the sex of users, three of them aimed at female users and one for males. These were used for health education during diagnosis, treatment, control and cure, being inserted in the approach of relevant topics in the field such as adherence to treatment, self-efficacy for disease management, management of nausea and vomiting, promotion of physical activity and changes in health behaviors and quality of life. It was concluded that the use of games constitutes a favorable strategy for health education in oncology, and scientific evidence was presented for its use among the various groups of patients with possibilities available for different clinical and social contexts. It is indicated that research in the area shows promising and follows trends in the field of health.