Ethical Challenges of Gamification in Healthcare and Health Promotion: A Systematic Thematic Analysis

Introduction: the concept of gamification provides possible solutions for the field of healthcare in terms of efficiency, and behavioural change. This work is a trial systematically highlighting the ethical considerations of gamification in healthcare. This research analyses the ethical effects of gamification on healthcare and health approach on a systematic basis. Methodology: the author follows a thematic analysis-based approach to highlight the themes of ethical challenges facing the implementation of gamification in healthcare and health promotion. This paper follows the PRISMA flow diagram for data collection. SPIDER and CASP checklist are used for search strategy and quality appraisal. Results and discussion: seven different themes of ethical challenges are identified in the literature including harm, privacy, manipulation and exploitation, inequality and stereotypes encouragement, data ownership, merging of the real and the virtual world, and the change of power dynamics. Such themes interact with each other in a thematic way that highlights a cause-and-effect relationship. Conclusion: the paper provides an interactive framework of ethical challenges scenarios. The author concludes that the use of different search words presented new themes in comparison to the previous work on the topic and the need for further widening of the scope of research for identification of more themes.