2 91 REVIEW OF APPLIED & CASUAL GAMES FOR MENTAL HEALTH Paper Country Target group N % male Age, mean (SD) Age range Intervention arms Intervention characteristics Assessments Variables measured Findings relevant for current review Murphy et al. 2021*** United Kingdom Children with social communi-cation impairments 50 74.0 6.25 (0.79) 4-7 years 1. E-PLAYS intervention (applied game). 2. TAU (active condition). 1. Twelve weekly 30-minute sessions; eight sessions were played with a teaching assistant and four with a classmate. 2. Usual practice by the speech and language therapist, oneto-one or in a small group. Pre, post and 3-months FU. Pragmatic language skills, collaborative and communicative skills, communication difficulties, behavioural and emotional problems and prosocial behaviour, quality of life, overall language ability; resources used by parents, duration and number of sessions, process evaluation. Results show that a full-scale RCT appears feasible and warranted to assess the effectiveness of E-PLAYS. Because the study assessed the feasibility of conducting of a full-scale trial, no statistical analyses were undertaken for the outcome measures and only descriptive data were presented. These data suggest that both groups showed improved pragmatic language skills, collaborative and communicative skills and prosocial behaviour over time. Other outcome measures were more mixed. Sanchez et al. 2014 USA Children with social skills deficits 36 73.1 NA 8-12 years 1. Playing Adventures aboard the S.S. GRIN, completing episode quizzes and minigames. 2. Waitlist control. 1. Episodes were released weekly for 4 weeks and children had one week to complete each episode, totalling approximately 90 minutes of gameplay. 2. Participants in the waitlist control group got access to the game after the post-test measurement. Pre, weekly evaluation survey, and post. Psychosocial distress, behavioural and emotional strength; weekly evaluation survey (usability and likability). Compared to the waitlist group, participants playing the Adventures game showed a decrease in psychosocial distress and increase in behavioural and emotional strength at post-test.
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