2 55 REVIEW OF APPLIED & CASUAL GAMES FOR MENTAL HEALTH Poppelaars, Lichtwarck-Aschoff, et al. (2018) and Russell and Newton (2008). Ferguson and Rueda (2010) employed four intervention arms: an antisocial violent game, a prosocial violent game, a nonviolent game, and a no-game control condition. For the purpose of this review, we simplified the comparisons and thus the antisocial violent game was compared to the nonviolent game and the passive condition, respectively, contributing two effect sizes to the plot. In the study of Valadez and Ferguson (2012), six intervention arms were employed. Participants played a casual game (i.e., Red Dead Redemption) in violent or nonviolent mode, or a nonviolent casual game (i.e., FIFA), for either 15 or 45 minutes. For the purpose of this review, we compare the 45-minutes gameplay of the violent game condition of Red Dead Redemption to the nonviolent game FIFA. In the study of Matheson et al. (2021), a body image playable was compared to two active conditions, namely an environmental conservation playable and body image social networking posts. Effect sizes for both comparisons were calculated, contributing two effect sizes to the plot. Finally, Hunter et al. (2019) compared an applied game to an active condition and passive condition, contributing two effect sizes to the plot. As shown in Figure A.13a (Appendix), the three effect sizes comparing an applied game to an active condition ranged from –0.14 to 0.17, with Matheson et al. (2021) showing a significant effect favouring the applied game. Goodie and Larkin (2001) showed an effect size of 1.07, significantly favouring the applied game over a casual game. Hunter et al. (2019) showed a significant effect size of 1.95 when comparing the applied game to a passive condition. In addition, Figure A.13b (Appendix) shows that the three effect sizes comparing a casual game to an active condition ranged from –0.27 to –0.08 and were all nonsignificant. Four effect sizes comparing a casual game (+ or violent) to another (nonviolent) casual game condition ranged from –0.15 to 0.49, with only the study of Russell and Newton (2008) showing a significant effect in favour of the casual game+ over another casual game. Lastly, Ferguson and Rueda (2010) presented a nonsignificant effect size of 0.39 in the comparison of a violent casual game to a passive condition. Mental Health Traits Twenty-six studies (described in 32 papers) included a (mentally) healthy participant sample and used a longitudinal design in which participants engaged with the intervention over a longer period of time. Consequently, outcome measures mainly reflect trait outcomes of mental health rather than momentary states. Based on common outcome measures across studies, the included papers were grouped into studies focussing on well-being,
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