Teaching good infection control practices with fun: impact of the serious game Flu.0

Introduction

Flu outbreaks usually reveal that practices and knowledge about the diagnosis of influenza, its treatment and infection control measures must be improved. A serious game, “Flu.0”, was created to teach the 8 key points to know and do when facing one or more patient infected by influenza.

Objectives

To evaluate the impact of playing to ‘Flu.0’ on the knowledge and practices of nurses and physicians.

Methods

Flu.0 is free and can be played online or downloaded; A call for participation to play and evaluate the game was performed. Players were asked to complete a questionnaire before and after the game to give their opinion on sentences about flu, to write what they learned with the game and the main thing they would do differently. A descriptive analysis was performed and the evolution of the answers was analysed.

Results

Physicians were 264 to participate (including 213 fellows), senior nurses 62 and nurses students 577; 95% learnt at least something. The main knowledge acquired was about rapid test for influenza (32%) and additional precautions (19%). Significantly, players agreed more after the game that seasonal flu is a not benign disease, that flu vaccination of health care workers is useful, knew more about antiviral treatment and felt better prepared to face a flu case (p<0.001). Thanks to the game 47% of physician/senior nurses and 80% of nurses students declared they would perform better additional precautions.

Conclusion

A serious game is an innovative quick and efficient tool for infection control team to improve patient safety.

Disclosure of interest

None declared.