A Gamification Model to Encourage Positive Healthcare Behaviours in Young People with Long Term Conditions

Abstract

Young people living with long term conditions will eventually have to transfer their care to the adult setting.Failure to plan and coordinate this has been associated with poorer health outcomes and disruption to their care.Transition planning encourages both health literacy and health promoting behaviours in an age and developmentally appropriate way. In order to gauge the attainment of these skills the Birmingham Children’s Hospital Adolescent Rheumatology Team (UK) have developed a series of transitional care checklists. This paper focuses on discussing how the application of gamification (using game mechanics in non-game contexts) to these checklists could improve the engagement of young people in managing their self-care and provide a mechanism for doctors to quantifying the acquisition of these skills.