BACKGROUND
Acquired immune deficiency syndrome (AIDS) caused by human immunodeficiency virus (HIV) has been one of the significant global public health issues. Since the beginning of the epidemic, various types of non-electronic communications tools are commonly involved in HIV/AIDS prevention and care while the studies that apply the potential of the electronic games are still limited.
OBJECTIVE
This paper is purposed to identify, compare, and describe serious games and gamified systems currently used in HIV/AIDS prevention and care studies in 10 years up to present.
METHODS
A scoping review was conducted into serious games video games and gamification used in HIV prevention and care in various well-known digital libraries from January 2010 to July 2021.
RESULTS
After the survey and the article selection process, 49 out of the 496 publications are eligible. Additionally, 32 articles involved different 22 serious games while 17 articles were related to dissimilar 13 gamified systems in HIV prevention and care.
CONCLUSIONS
Most of the research sites described in the publications were conducted in the USA. However, a few studies were performed in sub-Saharan countries, which have the highest global HIV/AIDS infection rate. Moreover, the majority of surveyed serious games are on mobile while gamified systems with behavior change approach was found more frequently than other kinds of gamification. Additionally, the significant purpose of both serious games and gamification is enhancing the effectiveness of HIV/AIDS prevention strategies. Furthermore, such studies show positive outcomes from serious game and gamification applications.HIV, serious game, gamification, public health, primary healthcare, patient care, behavioral health