ReviewDigital health
Effectiveness of digital games promoting young people's mental health: A review of reviews.
Review in Digital health. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. It is linked to trial NCT06720792 (An Escape Game to Promote Students' Mental Health Outcomes in the Aftermaths of Covid-19 Pandemic), which is not on this map. Cited by 5 papers.
What it found
Each row is one number read from the abstract, on the scale the paper reported it, with its interval. Left of the dashed line favours the treatment, right favours the comparator. Under each row is the sentence it came from. New to these charts? A ten-minute tutorial.
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.
An Escape Game to Promote Students' Mental Health Outcomes in the Aftermaths of Covid-19 Pandemic: Protocol for a Randomized Controlled Trial Evaluating a Cocreated Intervention
Who cites it
5 citing papers in PubMed.
- Impact VR: Building Socioemotional Resilience in Youth with Conduct Disorder.Prevention science : the official journal of the Society for Prevention Research · 2026Trial
- How do digital technologies improve the physical health of higher education students? A systematic scoping review.BMC public health · 2026Article
- Digital psychoeducational rehabilitation supported by serious games for psychiatric inpatients: a protocol study.Frontiers in psychology · 2026Article
- Mitigating Gambling-Related Harms in Children and Young People: A Scoping Review of Interventions.Journal of gambling studies · 2025Article
- EmoWELL: effectiveness of a serious game for emotion regulation in emerging adulthood.Frontiers in psychology · 2025Article
Corrections and comments
PubMed lists nothing against this paper. Absence here is not a guarantee, only a check that was made.
Authors and funding
5 authors.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
Objectives: Digital games are a popular form of entertainment for youth. They are often used as a therapy for psychological problems, a mental health promotion intervention, and a preventative measure. Systematic reviews and meta-analyses have been conducted to assess the effectiveness of mental health-related digital games. However, a synthesis considering all evaluation results to inform their development is missing. Methods: We performed a review of reviews to synthetize results of previous research to describe the impact of digital games on the mental health of young people aged <30 years old. We considered systematic reviews and meta-analyses published between 2012 and 2022. Searches were conducted in Scopus, Google Scholar, Pubmed, and Cochrane library systematic reviews (CENTRAL) during October 2023. Results: Our final selection included 10 systematic reviews and meta-analyses on interventions targeting youth of both sexes aged 2-29 years old across the world. In total, 218 interventions were identified. Selected articles reported different types of games, e.g., active and non-active video games, virtual reality games, serious games. Not all digital games were conscientiously evaluated, but, in general, their impact on mental health was positive. Regarding the quality, 5 studies were of high quality, 3 of moderate quality and 2 of low quality. Conclusions: Overall, elements of gamification were well-accepted, but they lacked assessment through rigorous experimental conditions. Digital games for mental health are promising, but in order to be consistently effective in promoting young people's mental health and prevent psychological diseases, they should present specific features.
Indexed as
Identifiers
What OpenQuestion holds
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.