Framework L para desenvolvedores de mHealth no contexto de self-care e gamificação

Abstract

This work investigates how gamification is used in health applications that aim to stimulate self-care. There is evidence in the literature indicating that the development of these "gamified" applications does not consider knowledge of the user profile to correctly employ game elements, there are also cases where the use of gamification extrapolates the main purpose of the application, which is to treat of health. This impacts on the inefficient use of this strategy. To overcome this problem, a conceptual gamification framework (method) was developed to be used in mHealth that encourages self-care. In this sense, the L Framework is composed of two dimensions, Self-Care and Gamification, which incorporate some concepts and practices so that an application developer can design his application. At the evaluation stage, the mixed method was used, with questionnaire application and online interview to specialists. The results indicate that the framework is a good initiative to help developers to design the mHealth application, primarily by encouraging engagement. As a secondary result of this research, a systematic review of the literature was developed, with the objective of ascertaining the relationship between self-care and gamification.