Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Serious Games
Date Submitted: Feb 10, 2023
Date Accepted: Jul 18, 2023
Serious Game to self-regulate Heart Rate Variability as a technique to manage arousal level through cardiorespiratory biofeedback
ABSTRACT
Background:
Heart rate variability biofeedback (HRVB) is an established intervention to increase heart rate variability (HRV) in the clinical context. With this technique, participants become aware of their HRV through real-time feedback and can self-regulate it.
Objective:
The aim of the study is double: first, to develop a serious game that applies the technique of HRVB to teach participants to self-regulate HRV, and second, to test the app with participants in a pilot study.
Methods:
For the study, the HRVB App developed was called FitLab Game. To go through the game, users must move a main character up and down the screen, avoiding colliding with obstacles. The wavelength that users must follow to avoid these obstacles is based on the user’s basal heart rate and changes in instantaneous heart rate (iHR). To test the FitLab Game, a total of 16 participants (23 ± 0.69 years) were divided into a control (n= 8) and experimental group (n=8). A 2x2 factorial design in a single session was carried out, participants in the experimental condition were trained in breathing techniques.
Results:
The change in frequency and time domain parameters of HRV, and the game’s performance features were evaluated. Significant changes in RR mean and RMSSD were found between groups (p = .020 and p = .037, respectively). No significant changes were found regarding performance, but both groups showed a tendency to increase the evaluated outcomes from baseline to test condition.
Conclusions:
The results can indicate that playing different screens leads to improvement of the game’s final score by repeated training. The tendency of changes in HRV may reflect a higher activation of mental system of attention and control in the experimental versus the control groups. In this line, learning simple and voluntary strategies through the developed serious game can aid to improve self-control and arousal management. FitLab Game appears as a promising serious game due to its easy functionality, high engagement and enjoyability provided by the instantaneous feedback.
Citation
The author of this paper has made a PDF available, but requires the user to login, or create an account.
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.