Background

Children and adolescents are major computer and technology gadget users. While serious games hold important promises for promoting health-related behavioral change and mental health among children and adolescents, their efficacy is yet unclear.

Objectives

We conducted a systematic review and meta-analysis aimed to offer a comprehensive picture on the evidence-based status of serious games for mental health promotion and health-related behavioral change in children and adolescents.

Method

We included 34 clinical and experimental randomized studies investigating the efficacy of serious games on mental health promotion and health-related behavioral change in children and adolescents.

Results

Results showed a small, but significant effect size with very high heterogeneity. Participants’ age, number of sessions, the length of session, and study quality significantly moderated the effect size, with younger participants, fewer and shorter sessions, and lower quality of the study being associated with higher effect sizes. The effect size was not significant for follow-up measurements.

Conclusions

The evidence supporting the use of serious games in children and adolescents for purposes of health promotion is limited. These conclusions must be considered with caution given the bias of publication. We need more adequately conducted studies testing well-specified serious games before we can draw clear conclusions.

中文翻译：

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严肃的游戏在促进儿童和青少年的心理健康和健康行为改变方面有多有效？系统评价和荟萃分析

背景

儿童和青少年是主要的计算机和技术小工具用户。虽然严肃的游戏对促进儿童和青少年健康相关的行为改变和心理健康具有重要的前景，但其功效尚不清楚。

目标

我们进行了系统的审查和荟萃分析，目的是全面介绍严重游戏的循证状况，以促进儿童和青少年的心理健康以及与健康相关的行为改变。

方法

我们纳入了34项临床和实验随机研究，调查了严重游戏对儿童和青少年心理健康促进和健康相关行为改变的功效。

结果

结果显示，效应大小很小，但异质性很高。参加者的年龄，疗程数，疗程时间和研究质量显着降低了效果的大小，参加者越年轻，疗程越短和越短，以及研究质量越低，则影响力越大。对于后续测量，效果大小并不显着。

结论

支持在儿童和青少年中使用严肃游戏以促进健康的证据有限。考虑到发表的偏见，必须谨慎考虑这些结论。在得出明确的结论之前，我们需要进行更充分地研究以测试特定规格的严肃游戏。