Reducing older people’s risk of fraud victimization through an anti-scam board game

ABSTRACT

This study adopted an experimental design to evaluate the effectiveness of an anti-scam education program for older adults. Participants in the experimental group (n = 55) first participated in an anti-scam board game and then joined another board game featuring local tea restaurants two weeks later, whereas such order was reversed for the control group (n = 54). Compared with the control group, participants in the experimental group reported significant increases in their self-efficacy in fraud prevention and awareness of scam situations, and a significant decrease in perceived susceptibility to scams immediately and two weeks after the intervention, demonstrating the immediate and the short-term effects of the anti-scam education program in reducing fraud victimization risk of older adults.

KEYWORDS:

• Anti-scam education program
• board game
• fraud victimization
• older adults

Acknowledgments

The authors greatly appreciate the Investor and Financial Education Council for the funding support. They also thank the People On Board Social Enterprises Limited and the Hong Kong Sheng Kung Hui Welfare Council Limited for arranging the workshops and participant recruitment. The authors are also very grateful to the participants who took part in this study.

Disclosure statement

No potential conflict of interest was reported by the author(s).

Data availability statement

The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author upon reasonable request.

Ethical approval

The study was approved by the Human Subjects Ethics Sub-committee of the affiliated university. Written informed consent was obtained from all participants at the baseline measures of the study.

Notes

1. The items for measuring awareness of scam situation were adapted from the Anti-Scam Online Quiz developed by the Investor and Financial Education Council (2021), which was copyrighted. Interested parties can contact the authors for further information.

Additional information

Funding

This project was supported by the Investor and Financial Education Council in Hong Kong (Project No: 9231459), which was awarded to the second author. The funder had no role in study design, data collection, data analyses, data interpretation, or manuscript preparation.