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An Automated Mobile Game-based Screening Tool for Patients with Alcohol Dependence

Intarasirisawat, Jittrapol, Ang, Chee Siang, Efstratiou, Christos, Dickens, Luke, Sriburapar, Naranchaya, Sharma, Dinkar, Asawathaweeboon, Burachai (2020) An Automated Mobile Game-based Screening Tool for Patients with Alcohol Dependence. Proceedings of the ACM on Interactive, Mobile, Wearable and Ubiquitous Technologies, 4 (3). Article Number 110. E-ISSN 2474-9567. (doi:10.1145/3411837) (KAR id:82472)

Abstract

Traditional methods for screening and diagnosis of alcohol dependence are typically administered by trained clinicians in medical settings and often rely on interview responses. These self-reports can be unintentionally or deliberately false, and misleading answers can, in turn, lead to inaccurate assessment and diagnosis. In this study, we examine the use of user-game interaction patterns on mobile games to develop an automated diagnostic and screening tool for alcohol-dependent patients. Our approach relies on the capture of interaction patterns during gameplay, while potential patients engage with popular mobile games on smartphones. The captured signals include gameplay performance, touch gestures, and device motion, with the intention of identifying patients with alcohol dependence. We evaluate the classification performance of various supervised learning algorithms on data collected from 40 patients and 40 age-matched healthy adults. The results show that patients with alcohol dependence can be automatically identified accurately using the ensemble of touch, device motion, and gameplay performance features on 3-minute samples (accuracy=0.95, sensitivity=0.95, and specificity=0.95). The present findings provide strong evidence suggesting the potential use of user-game interaction metrics on existing mobile games as discriminant features for developing an implicit measure to identify alcohol dependence conditions. In addition to supporting healthcare professionals in clinical decision-making, the game-based self-screening method could be used as a novel strategy to promote alcohol dependence screening, especially outside of clinical settings.

Item Type: Article
DOI/Identification number: 10.1145/3411837
Uncontrolled keywords: screening measures, serious games, alcohol dependence, mobile health
Subjects: Q Science > QA Mathematics (inc Computing science) > QA 76 Software, computer programming, > QA76.9.H85 Human computer interaction
Divisions: Divisions > Division of Computing, Engineering and Mathematical Sciences > School of Computing
Depositing User: Jim Ang
Date Deposited: 15 Aug 2020 18:15 UTC
Last Modified: 04 Mar 2024 19:07 UTC
Resource URI: https://kar.kent.ac.uk/id/eprint/82472 (The current URI for this page, for reference purposes)

University of Kent Author Information

Intarasirisawat, Jittrapol.

Creator's ORCID:
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Ang, Chee Siang.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-1109-9689
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Efstratiou, Christos.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-6288-9579
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Sriburapar, Naranchaya.

Creator's ORCID:
CReDIT Contributor Roles:

Sharma, Dinkar.

Creator's ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0002-0082-1285
CReDIT Contributor Roles:
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