Co-Design of an Escape Room for e-Mental Health Training of Mental Health Care Professionals: Research Through Design Study

Background: Many efforts to increase the uptake of e-mental health (eMH) have failed due to a lack of knowledge and skills, particularly among professionals. To train health care professionals in technology, serious gaming concepts such as educational escape rooms are increasingly used, which could also possibly be used in mental health care. However, such serious-game concepts are scarcely available for eMH training for mental health care professionals. Objective: This study aims to co-design an escape room for training mental health care professionals' eMH skills and test the escape room's usability by exploring their experiences with this concept as a training method. Methods: This project used a research through design approach with 3 design stages. In thefirst stage, the purpose, expectations, and storylines for the escape room wereformulated in 2 co-design sessions with mental health care professionals, game designers, innovation staff, and researchers. In the second stage, the results were translated into the first escape room, which was tested in 3 sessions, including one web version of the escape room. In the third stage, the escape room was tested with mental health care professionals outside the co-design team. First, 2 test sessions took place, followed by 3 field study sessions. In the field study sessions, a questionnaire was used in combination with focus groups to assess the usability of the escape room for eMH training in practice. Results: An escape room prototype was iteratively developed and tested by the co-design team, which delivered multiple suggestions for adaptations that were assimilated in each next version of the prototype. The field study showed that the escape room creates a positive mindset toward eMH. The suitability of the escape room to explore the possibilities of eMH was rated 4.7 out of 5 by the professionals who participated in the field study. In addition, it was found to be fun and educational at the same time, scoring 4.7 (SD 0.68) on a 5-point scale. Attention should be paid to the game's complexity, credibility, and flexibility. This is important for the usefulness of the escape room in clinical practice, which was rated an average of 3.8 (SD 0.77) on a 5-point scale. Finally, implementation challenges should be addressed, including organizational policy and stimulation of eMH training. Conclusions: We can conclude that the perceived usability of an escape room for training mental health care professionals in eMH skills is promising. However, it requires additional effort to transfer the learnings into mental health care professionals' clinical practice. A straightforward implementation plan and testing the effectiveness of an escape room on skill enhancement in mental health care professionals are essential next steps to reach sustainable goals.