Applying digital games (DG) in medical education and learning is increasing. The purpose of this meta-analysis was to determine the effectiveness of DG compared with other methods in terms of improving knowledge or satisfaction of learners in the medical field. An extensive search of publications dated between 2010 and 2020 was carried out through five databases. The citations as well as extracted data from articles were independently assessed, and randomized controlled trials (RCTs) were eligible acceding to inclusion. The methodological quality was evaluated using the Grading of Recommendations, Assessment, Development, and Evaluations assessment (GRADE). To screen the systematic results, standardized mean difference (SMD) was used, and the pooled effect sizes were calculated by random effects model. I² statistics, meta-regression and subgroup analyses were applied to evaluate the heterogeneity. In total 13 RCTs with 1236 subjects were included in research. The systemic analysis indicated a significantly improved effectiveness in support of DG compared to controls in medical education (SMD = 0.58, 95% confidence interval (CI) [0.46–0.69], p < 0.001), without significant publication bias. Additionally, significantly better outcomes were found in the long-retention of knowledge score (SMD = 0.37, 95% CI [0.19–0.55], p < 0.001). However, in the subgroup analysis no significance was indicated in the outcome of overall knowledge after using DG compared with other digital methods (SMD = 0.58, 95% CI [0.46–0.69], p < 0.001). Additionally, six studies assessed the attitude of learners, all of which reported a preference for DG. These results suggest that a DG-based medical curriculum could generate a significant improvement in learning compared to traditional methods.

在医学教育和学习中越来越多地使用数字游戏（DG）。这项荟萃分析的目的是为了确定DG与其他方法相比在提高医学领域学习者的知识或满意度方面的有效性。通过五个数据库对2010年至2020年之间的出版物进行了广泛搜索。对文章的引文和摘录数据进行独立评估，并且随机对照试验（RCT）符合纳入条件。使用“建议，评估，制定和评估的评分”（GRADE）评估方法学质量。为了筛选系统结果，使用标准化均值差（SMD），并通过随机效应模型计算合并效应的大小。我²统计，荟萃回归和亚组分析用于评估异质性。研究共纳入13个RCT，涉及1236名受试者。系统分析表明，与医学教育中的对照相比，支持DG的有效性显着提高（SMD = 0.58，95％置信区间（CI）[0.46-0.69]，p  <0.001），而没有明显的偏倚。此外，在长期保留知识得分中发现明显更好的结果（SMD = 0.37，95％CI [0.19-0.55]，p  <0.001）。但是，在亚组分析中，与其他数字方法相比，使用DG后总体知识的结果没有显着意义（SMD = 0.58，95％CI [0.46-0.69]，p <0.001）。此外，有六项研究评估了学习者的态度，所有这些都报告了他们对DG的偏爱。这些结果表明，与传统方法相比，基于DG的医学课程可以显着改善学习效果。