Accepted for/Published in: Journal of Medical Internet Research
Date Submitted: Aug 23, 2018
Open Peer Review Period: Aug 28, 2018 - Oct 4, 2018
Date Accepted: Feb 3, 2019
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Effectiveness of using digital game-based and school-based interventions to promote mental health in primary school students in Hong Kong
ABSTRACT
Background:
In Hong Kong, with an increasing number of children experiencing mental health issues, there is a need to develop not only innovative but also comprehensive prevention interventions to reduce their anxiety symptoms and enhance their emotional management and interpersonal relationships.
Objective:
This study was conducted to determine the effectiveness of “The Adventures of DoReMiFa”, an integration model of cognitive behavioral approach and positive psychology by using digital game-based and school-based mental health enhancement intervention to magnify the social and emotional health and well-being of children in Hong Kong aged 9 to 11.
Methods:
A quasi-experimental design method was used to evaluate this digital game and school-based intervention. “The Adventures of DoReMiFa” was piloted in 4 primary schools where students were allocated to either an intervention or a control group. Participants were assessed pre-and post-intervention with a 6-month follow-up, measuring their mental health knowledge, level of anxiety symptoms, positive and negative thinking, perspective-taking and self-esteem.
Results:
A total of 459 primary school students participated in the study. The intervention group was found to have significant association with improved mental health knowledge and perspective-taking. The intervention, however, was not found to be effective in reducing the rates of anxiety symptoms and negative thinking among the participating students.
Conclusions:
“The Adventures of DoReMiFa”, an integration of digital game-based and school-based mental health enhancement intervention was shown to be effective in elevating the knowledge of mental health and promoting perspective-taking of primary school students in Hong Kong. While there was insufficient evidence to support a reduction in symptoms of anxiety and negative automatic thoughts, the overall results were encouraging in that a preventive effect was found, indicating that “The Adventures of DoReMiFa” has potential to enhance the mental well-being of schoolchildren. The implications and limitations of this study and suggestions for future research were also discussed.
Citation
Per the author's request the PDF is not available.
Copyright
© The authors. All rights reserved. This is a privileged document currently under peer-review/community review (or an accepted/rejected manuscript). Authors have provided JMIR Publications with an exclusive license to publish this preprint on it's website for review and ahead-of-print citation purposes only. While the final peer-reviewed paper may be licensed under a cc-by license on publication, at this stage authors and publisher expressively prohibit redistribution of this draft paper other than for review purposes.