ArticleChild psychiatry and human development2023
Child's Play: Examining the Association Between Time Spent Playing and Child Mental Health.
Article in Child psychiatry and human development, 2023. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 16 papers, 1 of them a synthesis that pooled it.
What it found
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The abstract states no effect estimate the extractor could read, or names no intervention and outcome on the map, so this paper lights no cell and moves no belief. It is still indexed, cited and linked below.
The trial behind it
Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
Neither the registry nor the abstract names a trial number. If this is a trial report, that itself is worth knowing.
Who cites it
16 citing papers in PubMed, 1 synthesis or guideline pooled it, 50 citations in OpenAlex.
- Internalizing and externalizing symptoms in children during the COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic mixed studies review.Frontiers in psychology · 2023Pooled it
- Early outdoor play predicts trajectories of child mental health in a population-based cohort.Journal of child psychology and psychiatry, and allied disciplines · 2026Article
- Longitudinal associations between play experiences and trajectories of preschoolers' mental health from April-July, 2020.JCPP advances · 2026Article
- Article
- Factors Associated with Changes in Capability-Wellbeing for Children and Young People of Secondary School Age During the First COVID-19 Lockdown.Child indicators research · 2026Article
- Facilitators and barriers to adventurous play in British preschool-aged children: cross-sectional findings from the British Preschool Children's Play Survey.BMJ public health · 2026Article
- Risky Outdoor Play and Adventure Education in Nature for Child and Adolescent Wellbeing: A Scoping Review.Behavioral sciences (Basel, Switzerland) · 2025Review
- 2025 Position statement on active outdoor play.The international journal of behavioral nutrition and physical activity · 2025Review
- Parents' Childhood Invalidating Families and Children's Mental Health.Child psychiatry and human development · 2025Article
- Article
- Introducing the Multidimensional Toolkit for the Assessment of Play in Schools (M-TAPS): a reliability study.F1000Research · 2025Article
- Article
- Does Play-Based Learning Support Children's Everyday Resiliency? A Cross-Case Analysis of Parents' and Kindergarten Teachers' Perceptions of Play-Based Learning as a Precedent to Young Children's Coping During the Pandemic-Affected 2020-2021 School Year.Children (Basel, Switzerland) · 2024Article
- "Losing access to outdoor spaces was the biggest challenge for children to be healthy": pandemic restrictions and community supports for children's movement in Nova Scotia.Frontiers in public health · 2024Article
- Commemorating the monkey bars, catalyst of debate at the intersection of human evolutionary biology and public health.Evolution, medicine, and public health · 2024Review
- Virtual Risk Management-Exploring Effects of Childhood Risk Experiences through Innovative Methods (ViRMa) for Primary School Children in Norway: Study Protocol for the ViRMa Project.JMIR research protocols · 2023Article
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
3 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
Abstract
It is theorised that adventurous play offers learning opportunities that help to prevent mental health problems in children. In this study, data from two samples is used to examine associations between the time that children aged 5-11 years spent playing adventurously and their mental health. For comparison, time spent playing unadventurously and time spent playing outdoors are also examined. Study 1 includes a sample of 417 parents, Study 2 includes data from a nationally representative sample of 1919 parents. Small, significant associations between adventurous play and internalising problems, as well as positive affect during the first UK-wide Covid-19 lockdown, were found; children who spend more time playing adventurously had fewer internalising problems and more positive affect during the Covid-19 lockdown. Study 2 showed that these associations were stronger for children from lower income families than for children from higher income families. The results align with theoretical hypotheses about adventurous play.
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Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.