How can gamification be used to manage disease?

The web application sjekkdeg.no was launched at the beginning of 2015. And during all the year it has over 3,600 visitors. Most of them, they were reaching the site through the desktop version. 600– over 600– they were reaching the site through the mobile version. And just a few of them with a tablet computer. In April, 2013, aiming to increase the number of our visitors, we have our Facebook advertisement campaign. The advertisement was targeting over 16,000 accounts from Facebook of users aged between 13 and 25 years old, from all the villages and cities from Tromso and Finnmark.

This is the advertisement, where you can see the drawing of a virtual doctor and a message that is encouraging the youth to go to the virtual cinema and watch a video on what will happen on your body when you have an orgasm. The web application sjekkdeg.no is being tracked by Google Analytics. And here we can have a look at the summary of the visitors’ behaviour during 2013. We know that it was 3,670 visits during this year. These visits belonged to 2,400 unique visitors. They visit over 75,000 pages, which it means an average of 20 pages per visit.

The visitors– they spent an average of five minutes and two seconds in the site, which is a lot of time, taking into account that it’s educational website. And almost 65% of these visits belonged to new visitors. So this means that 35% of visitors are returning visitors, which is also very good, because they might find it interesting and they want to be back again and to check more things. If we have a look at visitors’ rate per month, along the year, we can see here a big peak around April, which is related with the Facebook advertisement campaign that we were looking for. And what is the interest of the youth on sjekkdeg.no?

As you can see, here, the most visits– most people are visiting a lot of pages on the lessons. So they are reading about sexual health and how to prevent sexually transmitted diseases. However, the most time per visit, with an average of three minutes and 26 seconds, is on the videos. So they read quite a lot of lessons, but the most time spent on the site is watching videos.

It is also interesting to see that, among the 3,600 visitors that sjekkdeg.no had during 2015, over 1,100 belong only to this Facebook advertisement campaign. We observed that, during this advertisements campaign, the users were visiting an average of 15 pages each. They spent an average of three minutes and 43 seconds on the site, which is a long time, taking into account that this is an educational site. So we see that one of every three visitors to the site– they came only in one month, and thanks to the Facebook advertisement campaign, which was very successful. However, the Facebook fan page was not that successful, and we only got 35 likes.

The explanation we find is that the users– they are interested in the sexual-education site, but they don’t like to press the button Like on Facebook, to avoid notifications on the profile And therefore protecting themselves. So, for this campaign, we have an investment of 3,000 Norwegian kroner, which approximately it means over 12,000 Taiwan new dollars. The preliminary conclusions of this project is that gamification seems to engage young people to learn more on sexual health, according to the visitor rates. This could also mean that they are changing their behaviour for protecting themselves on sexually transmitted diseases. And the social media seems to be a promising way to reach Norwegian youngsters, as well, because it’s a very rapid spread.

Also, they really don’t like the Facebook fan page. They prefer to protect themselves.

With these preliminary conclusions, we got new questions. We ask them …… if maybe could gamification help even more on sexual health, on the youth. Because young people may feel insecure when they have to talk to health professionals on matters concerning sexual health. And it’s a great challenge for them to book an appointment with a health professional, because often it involves a phone conversation to explain the reason for the appointment. So we thought that maybe could a gamified appointment system encourage the youth to ask for appointments. And, so far, we create a second study, related to the first one. This is a randomized-control trial.

And we want to assess if the impact of a game-based appointment system on the frequency of consultations from youth at the venereology unit at the University Hospital, here in north Norway. So what we have made. Right now, we have two versions of the web application sjekkdeg.no. So, for the users from the city of Tromso, when they reach the website for the first time, they are being asked if they live in the city or not. If they live in the city, then they are randomised to any of the two versions of the site. And half of the users, they have access to the site, as you have seen, containing educational content.

And half of the users have access to the same website, which additionally includes a version that can ask for an appointment– for a real appointment with a venereology unit. So right now we are carrying out this randomized-control trial. And the trial is registered in clinicaltrials.org. Here you have the number, if you want to check for much more information. So this is how the game-style appointment system looks like. As you can see, we’re still using a game-style study. And the user is the avatar on the left. It’s interacting with a virtual doctor. And, after telling him several symptoms that the user might have, the doctor is suggesting that maybe the avatar should get tested in real settings.

So then the system is offering several dates and hours to choose for a real appointment at the University Hospital of North Norway. Then, if the user wants to, they can choose the date and show up for the real visit. Then, into they go for a real visit, they have to sign the informed consent.

As I told you before, this is a randomized-control trial that has just started. It started in January 2015, and it will last for one year, until the end of this year. And we’re expecting to have results at the beginning of 2016. And, as previously, the project is being promoted through Facebook– through the Facebook advertisement. So next year we expect to have our results on the use of gamification and social media for sexually transmitted disease prevention among youth and appointment system. So thank you very much for your attention.