An educational board game for learning and teaching burn care: A preliminary evaluation

Abstract

Timely and effective assessment, resuscitation and transfer of patients with severe burns has been demonstrated to improve outcome. A dedicated one-day course exists to equip all frontline emergency healthcare workers with the necessary knowledge and skills to manage severe burn injuries. More recently, a board game has been developed which aims to act as a learning and practice development tool for those managing burn injuries. We present the findings of our preliminary evaluation of this game. We played this game with a multidisciplinary group of staff including doctors, nurses and therapists. A proportion of these participants had previously completed the Emergency Management of Severe Burns (EMSB) course. We obtained subjective results from a questionnaire, using both Likert-type ratings and open-ended questions. The styling of the game and ease of instructions was rated from ‘average’ to ‘excellent’. The relevance of questions was rated from ‘good’ to ‘excellent’. The usefulness of the game to increase knowledge and stimulate discussion was rated between ‘good’ and ‘excellent’. All participants stated that they would recommend the game to other healthcare professionals. This is the only burns and plastic surgery-related educational game in the literature. Educational games adhere to principles of adult learning but there is insufficient evidence in the literature to either confirm or refute their utility. Our preliminary evaluation of this game has shown that it achieves its main aims, namely to increase knowledge in burn care and to stimulate discussion. Further work is required to assess the board game.Lay summaryStaff who work in emergency areas should know how to assess, treat and transfer patients with severe burns. This improves the outcome for these patients. Board games have been used in other areas of teaching in medicine.This article shows the way we used a board game to teach doctors, nurses and therapists about how to assess and treat burns. This board game has been made to increase knowledge and to help players talk about and share how they have managed these injuries in the past.We asked staff to play the game and tell us what they thought about the design and the instructions. We also asked whether it helped them increase their knowledge and if it helped to start a discussion about treating burns. We asked if they thought other staff should use the game.We found that the staff who played the game rated the style and instructions from ‘average’ to ‘excellent’. They rated the questions and if it helped to start a discussion as ‘good’ to ‘excellent’. All staff would recommend the game as a way of teaching about burns.This is the only game which exists to help staff learn about treating burns. We feel it should be used with all staff who see and manage patients with burns. More work needs to be done to look at this game in more detail.