The Effectiveness of a Serious Game Targeting Interpersonal Emotion Regulation in Early Adolescents

Study Overview
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Brief Summary
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Background: Adaptive interpersonal emotion regulation (iER) is a vital tool for positive relations. During early adolescence, peer relations become increasingly important, making this age group a relevant target group for interventions promoting positive interactions with each other, yet no evidence-based intervention exists for early adolescents specifically. Methods: This randomized controlled trial (RCT) aims to test effectiveness and feasibility of a serious game training iER skills in early adolescents by comparing outcomes with a control group playing a game without psychoeducational content in a pre- and post-test design. German- and English-speaking early adolescents (10-14 years) are eligible for participation. IER skills improvement assessed by a vignette task is the primary outcome variable and will be analysed with a chi-square test. Feasibility and acceptability and variables such as emotional competence, personal emotion regulation, gender, and sex will be assessed by questionnaires. Discussion: This RCT will test whether playing serious game about iER strategies will result in an improvement of iER skills and whether the game is feasible and acceptable for early adolescents with the ultimate aim to implement the game in school classes and help early adolescents achieve positive peer relationships.

Official Title
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Randomized Controlled Trial to Evaluate the Effectiveness of a Serious Game Targeting Interpersonal Emotion Regulation in Early Adolescents

Conditions
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Interpersonal Relations

Intervention / Treatment
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* Device: IER AG
* Device: BubbleShooter


Participation Criteria
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Eligibility Criteria
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Inclusion Criteria: Between 10 and 14 years old Willing and able to provide written parental consent Willing and able to participate in filling out pre- and post-test online questionnaires, and playing a web-based game Able to read and understand German or English Access to a device with internet (computer, mobile phone, tablet) Exclusion Criteria: -

Ages Eligible for Study
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Minimum Age: 10 Years
Maximum Age: 14 Years

Sexes Eligible for Study
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All

Accepts Healthy Volunteers
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Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Study Plan
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How is the study designed?
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Design Details

Primary Purpose: Prevention
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention Model: Parallel Assignment
Interventional Model Description: This trial is a RCT with an experimental and a control group, with participants being individually allocated to either of the groups. The allocation ratio is 50:50. This RCT adopts a pre-post-test strategy with the between-participant factor group and the within-participant factor time.
Masking: Triple


Arms and Interventions

| Participant Group/Arm | Intervention/Treatment |
| --- | --- |
| Experimental: IER serious game<br>A serious game training interpersonal emotion regulation strategies. | Device: IER AG<br>* The game is a web-based single-player adventure game with 3 levels created with the RPG Maker MV. Playtime is approximately 3 hours.<br>|
| Sham Comparator: control game<br>A control puzzle game without psychoeducational content. | Device: BubbleShooter<br>* A free-to-play arcade browser puzzle game called BubbleShooter.<br>|

What is the study measuring?
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Primary Outcome Measures

| Outcome Measure | Measure Description | Time Frame |
| --- | --- | --- |
| Interpersonal emotion regulation | change of iER strategies participants can think of from pre (baseline)- to post-intervention, i.e. if the percentage of participants who improve their knowledge about possible iER strategies is higher in the experimental group compared to the control group. This is done via a vignette-task. | The follow-up will be approximately 5 days after baseline measures. | 

 Terms related to the study
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Keywords Provided by Centre Hospitalier Valida
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serious games, interpersonal emotion regulation, early adolescence