Abstract:

Background:
Children and young people are increasingly effected by dementia as prevalence rises and families adopt more caring responsibilities for those living with dementia. Recent research has shown that when young people experience dementia in their family, there are challenges in balancing developmental needs and caring responsibilities. There is, therefore, a need for children to be educated about dementia, to improve their understanding and to equip them for the emotional challenges and changes in their family that can occur after a loved-one is diagnosed with dementia. This research presents a logic model for how a co-designed online educational game about dementia for children was piloted in primary schools.

Research Design and Methods:
A co-designed educational game for children about dementia was piloted in three schools in Northern Ireland with children aged 9-10 years. Data about the acceptability of the game and changes in knowledge about dementia were collected using a pre-post survey method and used to develop a logic model for how the game could be implemented in primary schools and how further evaluation of its effectiveness could be scaled up in future research.

Results:
A logic model was developed to map the process from inputs to outputs/programme activities to proximal and distal outcomes. The quantitative evaluation showed that improvements in knowledge about dementia was a proximal outcome and barriers to further scale-up were identified around the feasibility of online data collection with this age-group.

Discussion and conclusions:
This project shows how the implementation science approach of logic modelling for educational programmes can be developed using pilot evaluation data. The use of this methodology for a novel approach to education about dementia in a school setting has provided a framework for future scale-up and has implications for how to move educational programmes from co-design to rigorous evaluations of efficacy. Gamification is used increasingly in education and this work presents a model for how evidence-based and implementation science-informed frameworks for delivery can be used to both evaluate and plan further programme development.

Keywords:

Education, technology, logic modelling, implementation science, educational game.