NCT06063434

Testing the Effectiveness of Night Shift, a Theory-based Customized Video Game

Testing the Effectiveness of a Theory-based, Customized Video Game at Increasing the Implementation of Clinical Practice Guidelines in Trauma Triage

• Status: Completed
• Phase: N/A
• Study type: Interventional
• Enrollment: 800 (actual)
• Sponsor: University of Pittsburgh · Academic / Other
• Sex: All
• Age: 25 Years – 70 Years
• Healthy volunteers: Not accepted

Summary

The goal of this clinical trial is to test the effect of a video game on the implementation of clinical practice guidelines in trauma triage. The main question it attempts to answer is whether exposure to the game improves compliance with guidelines by emergency medicine physicians working at non-trauma centers in the US. Participants randomized to the intervention condition will be asked to play a customized, theory-based video game for 2 hours immediately after enrollment, and then return to the game for 20 minutes every three months for the next 9 months. Participants in the control condition will receive usual care.

Detailed description

Transfer of severely injured patients to trauma centers, either directly from the field or after evaluation at non-trauma centers, reduces preventable morbidity and mortality. Failure to transfer these patients appropriately (i.e., under-triage) remains common, and occurs in part because physicians at non-trauma centers make diagnostic errors when evaluating the severity of patients' injuries. The study team developed Night Shift, a theory-based adventure video game, to recalibrate physician heuristics (intuitive judgments) in trauma triage and established its efficacy in the laboratory. The investigators plan a Type 1 hybrid effectiveness-implementation trial to determine whether the game changes physician triage decisions in real-life, and hypothesize that it will reduce the proportion of patients under-triaged.

Conditions

• Trauma Injury
• Physician's Role

Interventions

Type	Name	Description
BEHAVIORAL	Night Shift	The player must not only manage the patients who present to the emergency department of the hospital, gaining experience with the consequences of trauma triage, but also solve the mystery of the grandfather, gaining an emotional connection with the character and making the feedback that "Andy" receives more relevant. Embedded within Night Shift 2024 is a mini-game (Graveyard Shift) that contains a series of puzzles that reinforce the lessons of the overarching game: transfer severely injured patients expeditiously.
BEHAVIORAL	Usual education	Standard continuing medical education, including Advanced Trauma Life Support, and the American Board of Emergency Medicine educational modules (e.g., trauma resuscitation).

Timeline

• Start date: 2023-11-27
• Primary completion: 2025-03-30
• Completion: 2025-03-30
• First posted: 2023-10-02
• Last updated: 2025-10-20

Locations

1 site across 1 country: United States