Enhancing emergency competencies in healthcare professionals via murder mystery games: An innovative gamification learning-based approach.

ABSTRACT

BACKGROUND: Enhancing the emergency competencies of healthcare professionals is essential for ensuring patient safety, optimizing emergency response efficiency, and fostering effective team collaboration. However, traditional simulation-based methods often struggle to accurately replicate real-life emergencies, resulting in outcomes that may not fully reflect actual performance, thereby undermining their effectiveness in training and developing the critical skills needed for emergency situations. OBJECTIVE: This study evaluated the effectiveness of using murder mystery games (MMGs) as a gamified learning method to enhance the emergency competencies of healthcare professionals. METHODS: Twelve scripts of emergency scenarios were developed for the MMGs, and five assessment scales were established, covering emergency response, scenario decision-making, team collaboration, emotional support, and human care. Questionnaire data were analyzed between the experimental and control groups using Chi-square tests for five dimensions and nineteen indicators of emergency competencies. RESULTS: The performance of the experimental group in emergency response and emotional support was significantly higher than that of the control group (P<0.001). The experimental group also showed notable excellence in scenario decision-making, team collaboration, and human care (P<0.005). CONCLUSIONS: Emergency capabilities can be significantly enhanced through murder mystery games, providing robust support for improving the quality of medical services.