My name is Gareth and I work as an Infection Prevention & Control Nurse for the Betsi Cadwaladr University Health Board (BCUHB) in North Wales and I wondered if you might be interested to hear about the Clostridium difficile themed educational board game that I have developed?Two years ago I had the idea of designing an educational board game to teach healthcare professionals about Clostridium difficile infection in a non-traditional but engaging way.
Originally titled “Mon-PLOP-oly” and designed to look exactly like a retro Monopoly board, the game was trialled across all three main BCUHB hospitals. I was very pleased to find that not only did people enjoy playing the game but that more importantly, they actually improved their knowledge by playing it.
During the trial, 85 participants were given pre and post game questionnaires and 98% answered more questions correctly having played the game (some increasing their knowledge by 50%).
Having been received so favourably, the next logical step was to redesign and rebrand the game in an effort to distance it from being so heavily modelled on Monopoly.
The game, now known as “Game of Stools”, is designed to be played by 2 players or 2 teams of players and takes approximately 30 minutes to play.
No specialist facilitator is required and the game is suitable for any healthcare professional having been trialled with doctors, nurses, healthcare support workers, students and more.
Topics covered in the game include:
• Clinical factors
• Risk factors
• Transmission of Clostridium difficile
• Laboratory diagnosis
• Management and treatment
• Isolation precautions
• Environmental cleaning
Game of Stools aims to improve knowledge and confidence of staff, contribute to the prevention and management of disease and generate discussion between players about how to improve infection prevention practices.
There are different ways to win the game which lends proceedings a competitive edge and the random nature of play (dice rolling and drawing cards) means the game has replay value too.
The game was then taken to Focus Games (the UK’s premier educational board game manufacturer) who were happy to add the game to their ever growing catalogue of educational games.
Copies of the game are available to pre-order from Focus Games with the launch planned for August 21st.
If you would like to see more, please follow the link http://www.stoolsgame.com/