Dental Case, a Brazilian Serious Game for Supporting Decision-making in the Dental Clinic: A Case Study

Background: Games are intrinsic to society and are used to represent a wide variety of human activities. Contemporary society has been digitalized, and the habit of playing games has naturally migrated to the digital environment. The use of digital games in education, where they are known as serious games, has given rise to the introduction of new educational approaches for dental students and dentists, which complement traditional approaches. A brief conceptual outline of games can help broaden our understanding thereof in social and educational contexts. Objective: To report the designing and development of a serious game for decision-making in clinical case management in the field of dentistry, for use as a complementary teaching tool. Method: The method used was a case study to describe the development of the content and narrative of a Brazilian serious game for decision-making in the dental clinic, called Dental Case. A player in Dental Case takes on the role of a dentist during a consultation, with the mission of completing the steps of anamnesis, clinical examination, complementary examination, diagnosis, and treatment. The clinical cases presented in the game were designed to resemble real-life decision-making situations in the dental clinic of a primary healthcare setting. The content developed was reviewed and validated by specialists, from both a technical and pedagogical point of view, and then included in the game software by an information technology (IT) team. Results: Dental Case was developed from a set of clinical cases. The game targets dental professionals and students, and its goal is to lend support to the teaching of decision-making in the different stages of clinical care. The game is freely available on the web, and on the Play Store and Apple Store mobile application platforms. Conclusions: The resources made available by Dental Case constitute a new complementary pedagogical approach, and a tool for the application of educational technologies in dentistry, which can contribute to expanding the scale and reach of educational activities. Future research is warranted to investigate the effectiveness of Dental Case in promoting learning and should include an evaluation of its performance by its users.