Can gaming help children’s mental health?

As part of Children’s Mental Health Week (7 – 13 February), Patrick Quinn, a Masters by Research student at the University of South Wales, explores whether computer games can have a positive effect on the wellbeing of children and young people. 

Patrick’s research seeks to establish guidelines for the design of digital therapeutic games, intended for use at primary schools as preventive measures against depressive disorders in young people. 

He said: “These guidelines will draw on psychotherapeutic, educational and game design theory, to create engaging, motivational programmes which are capable of teaching skills and knowledge to target problem areas associated with depressive disorders, such as low levels of self-esteem, self-regulation, and self-care. 

“By developing these skills from an early age, these guidelines could be used to design digital therapeutic games which reduce emergent cases of depression in young people, while limiting the severity of those cases which do emerge. 

"This will build on existing game-based therapeutic approaches for children and young people, drawing on design insight to create fun, experiential, and developmentally appropriate games as part of education.” 

This research comes in response to the European Commission’s (2013) and World Health Organization’s (2004) reports which called for a promotion and preventive approach to mental health and wellbeing, as a way of reducing the need for contemporary therapeutic services. 

Patrick added: “While digital games have a long history of use within psychotherapy, and have been shown to be effective modalities for the delivery of therapeutic interventions for the treatment and management of mental disorders, few studies have so far been identified exploring disorder prevention. 

“My research is intended as a theoretical framework for further research, drawing together evidence-based approaches already used in the design of digital therapeutic games, and discussing how they could be used as part of preventive interventions. These evidence-based approaches will focus on the use of educational theory, ensuring that psychotherapeutic skills and knowledge are not only learned and memorised, but mastered through practice within in-game worlds, and generalised to ensure such skills and practices are used in day-to-day life. 

“Rather than providing players with knowledge, these guidelines will propose the creation of active, experiential learning environments, allowing players to not only learn skills and knowledge, but to practice, experiment, and strategise with the learning material. By taking this approach, these guidelines will focus on skill mastery and generalisation, to encourage use and application of learned material beyond the learning environment.” 

Further research is needed to expand on and refine these guidelines, before they can be trialled as part of the design of practical interventions for the prevention of mental disorders, such as depression in young people. This future research will seek to address debate within the digital therapeutic game community regarding the role of educators and clinicians as part of a digital game-based therapeutic intervention. 

Rather than reducing the role of clinicians and educators in the delivery of game-based interventions however, this proposed research will discuss how games can be designed to include professionals as part of digital game-based interventions. Drawing on existing approaches, this research will focus on expanding existing guidelines, providing designers with evidence-based approaches and systems which could be used to deepen professional involvement in digital game-based interventions.  

This research will also explore the needs of professionals regarding digital therapeutic games, with a focus on streamlining my proposed guidelines to meet the practical barriers to digital game use within clinical or classroom environments. By drawing professionals into the design of these guidelines and addressing practical barriers, Patrick hopes that these guidelines will not only result in games which can reduce emergent cases of depressive disorders, but which are also user friendly, adaptable, and accessible for both players and professionals.