Effect of a Novel Video Game on Stroke Knowledge of 9- to 10-Year-Old, Low-Income Children

• Published in: Stroke (1970) Vol. 45; no. 3; pp. 889 - 892
• Main Authors: WILLIAMS, Olajide, HECHT, Mindy F, DESORBO, Alexandra L, HUQ, Saima, NOBLE, James M
• Format: Journal Article
• Language: English
• Published: Hagerstown, MD Lippincott Williams & Wilkins 01-03-2014
• Subjects: Biological and medical sciences; Brain Ischemia; Child; Female; Headache. Facial pains. Syncopes. Epilepsia. Intracranial hypertension. Brain oedema. Cerebral palsy; Health Education - methods; Health Knowledge, Attitudes, Practice; Humans; Intracranial Hemorrhages; Male; Medical sciences; Nervous system (semeiology, syndromes); Neurology; New York City; Poverty; Stroke; Vascular diseases and vascular malformations of the nervous system; Video Games; New York City; Human; Vascular disease; Stroke; Nervous system diseases; Central nervous system disease; Cardiovascular disease; healthcare disparities; Health education; Child; Cerebrovascular disease; Cerebral disorder; health education; stroke
• ISSN: 0039-2499; 1524-4628
• DOI: 10.1161/strokeaha.113.002906

Improving actionable stroke knowledge of a witness or bystander, which in some cases are children, may improve response to an acute stroke event.
We used a quasiexperimental pre-test post-test design to evaluate actionable stroke knowledge of 210 children aged 9 to 10 years in response to a single, 15-minute exposure to a stroke education video game conducted in the school computer laboratory. After immediate post-test, we provided remote password-protected online video game access and encouraged children to play at their leisure from home. An unannounced delayed post-test occurred 7 weeks later.
Two hundred ten children completed pretest, 205 completed immediate post-test, whereas 198 completed delayed post-test. One hundred fifty-six (74%) children had Internet access at home, and 41 (26%), mostly girls, played the video game remotely. There was significant improvement in stroke symptom composite scores, calling 911, and all individual stroke knowledge items, including a distractor across the testing sequence (P<0.05). Children who played the video game remotely demonstrated significant improvement in knowledge of 1 symptom (sudden imbalance) compared with children who did not (P<0.05), although overall composite scores showed no difference.
Stroke education video games may represent novel means for improving and sustaining actionable stroke knowledge of children.