Established Evidence Results

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): PATIENT_CONSUMER, Online Games

Intervention Description: The proliferation of the video game era has increased sedentary behaviours among children and adolescents. Contemporary interventions involve the use of video games to introduce fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption among children and adolescents. A comprehensive list of licenced video games (n = 671) released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console were reviewed for thematic content and qualitative characteristics of the game's activity relevant to F&V. Seventy-five video games were included in the study sample and categorised by release year, prevalence of F&V, and thematic content.

Intervention Results: Mild associations were found comparing release year to F&V totals (r = 0.21) and release year to theme (r = 0.19). F&V themes embedded within classic video games could serve as health-promoting lessons for forthcoming video games. Future games produced by the video gaming industry should continue to focus on nutrition-embedded messages promoting F&V.

Conclusion: Video game development and marketing could be an avenue that incorporates healthy nutrition themes.

Study Design: The proliferation of the video game era has increased sedentary behaviours among children and adolescents. Contemporary interventions involve the use of video games to introduce fruit and vegetable (F&V) consumption among children and adolescents. A comprehensive list of licenced video games (n = 671) released for the Nintendo Entertainment System (NES) console were reviewed for thematic content and qualitative characteristics of the game's activity relevant to F&V. Seventy-five video games were included in the study sample and categorised by release year, prevalence of F&V, and thematic content.

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): Education on Disease/Condition, Online Material/Education/Blogging, Online Games

Intervention Description: An anti-tobacco educational board game, Smoke Stacks, was designed to engage youth in critical thinking regarding marketing practices of tobacco companies and tobacco's harmful effects. A pilot study was conducted to examine whether playing this theoretically informed that board game increased knowledge about tobacco use and negative attitudes toward tobacco companies, and decreased behavioral intentions to use tobacco.

Intervention Results: Compared to baseline, participants reported substantially increased self-perceived knowledge of the health effects of tobacco (P = 0.001) and were significantly more likely to agree that tobacco companies encourage young people to start smoking (P = 0.001), and that tobacco companies deny that cigarettes cause cancer and other diseases (P = 0.002).

Conclusion: This pilot study demonstrates that youth who played Smoke Stacks gained perceived knowledge and increased negative attitudes toward tobacco company tactics for encouraging smoking and discounting potential health risks of cigarettes.

Study Design: Pre/post evaluation

Setting: Chicago metro area, Illinois

Population of Focus: Researchers, public health professionals, policymakers

Sample Size: 67 youth

Age Range: ages 14-18

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): Adult-led Support/Counseling/Remediation, Online Games

Intervention Description: The intervention described is a media-based mentoring program that supports middle school students in engaging in argumentation in the context of a game-infused science curriculum. This mentoring program is unique in that it uses college student mentors who interact with the middle school students via an academic social network designed around a video game.

Intervention Results: The results showed that students who engaged with the game-infused science curriculum while interacting with college student mentors demonstrated higher ratings of cognitive, epistemic, and social aspects of argumentation. The mentored groups also showed increased agency compared to non-mentored groups.

Conclusion: The conclusion is that media-based mentoring can significantly impact argumentation practices and can serve as a tool to help advance the NGSS vision of school science as both a body of knowledge and a set of practices meant to establish, extend, and refine that knowledge.

Study Design: The study design is a quasi-experiment comparing the argumentation practices of the mentored and non-mentored groups concurrently with a case study of discourse analyses.

Setting: public middle school located in a rural community in the Southwest United States.

Population of Focus: middle school student

Sample Size: not stated

Age Range: 11/14/2024

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): Education on Disease/Condition, Online Material/Education/Blogging, Online Games

Intervention Description: The ASPIRE web-based smoking prevention program targeted adolescents to reduce intention to smoke. It featured interactive elements, multimedia content, and engaging activities to educate about tobacco risks. The intervention group experienced the full ASPIRE program, while the control group had a text-based version. By comparing outcomes, the study assessed the impact of interactivity and entertainment on smoking prevention. ASPIRE aimed to engage adolescents effectively and prevent smoking initiation

Intervention Results: A total of 82 participants completed the study and were included in the analysis. Participants in the experimental condition were more likely to show a decrease in their intention to smoke than those in the control condition (beta=-0.18, P=.008). Perceived interactivity (beta=-0.27, P=.004) and entertainment (beta=-0.20, P=.04) were each associated with a decrease in intention to smoke independently. Results of path analyses indicated that perceived interactivity and perceived entertainment mediated the relationship between ASPIRE use and emotional involvement. Furthermore, perceived presence mediated the relationship between perceived interactivity and emotional involvement. There was a direct relationship between perceived entertainment and emotional involvement. Emotional involvement predicted a decrease in intention to smoke (beta=-0.16, P=.04).

Conclusion: Adolescents' experience of interactivity and entertainment contributed to the expected outcome of lower intention to smoke. Also, emphasis needs to be placed on the emotional experience during Web-based interventions in order to maximize reductions in smoking intentions. Going beyond mere evaluation of the effectiveness of a Web-based smoking prevention program, this study contributes to the understanding of adolescents' psychological experience and its effect on their intention to smoke. With the results of this study, researchers can work to (1) enhance the experience of interactivity and entertainment and (2) amplify concepts of media effects (eg, presence and emotional involvement) in order to better reach health behavior outcomes.

Study Design: Randomized controlled trial

Setting: Houston, Texas metro area

Population of Focus: Adolescents in secondary school settings

Sample Size: 82 youth

Age Range: ages 12-17

Intervention Components (click on component to see a list of all articles that use that intervention): Education on Disease/Condition, Online Material/Education/Blogging, Online Games

Intervention Description: ...we developed the mobile game intervention HitnRun. A two-armed randomized controlled trial (RCT; n = 144) was conducted and young smokers (Mage = 19.39; SDage = 2.52) were randomly assigned to either play HitnRun or read a psychoeducational brochure. Prior to, directly following the intervention period, and after three-month follow-up, weekly smoking behavior, abstinence rates, intervention dose, and peer- and engagement-related factors were assessed.

Intervention Results: Results indicated similar reductions in weekly smoking levels and similar abstinence rates for both groups. Yet, we found a dose effect with HitnRun only: The longer participants played HitnRun, the lower their weekly smoking levels were. In the brochure group, a higher dose was related to higher weekly smoking levels at all measurement moments. Exploratory analyses showed the most powerful effects of HitnRun for participants who connected with and were engaged by the intervention.

Conclusion: Future work should build on the promising potential of HitnRun by increasing personalization efforts and strengthening peer influence components.

Study Design: Randomized controlled trial

Setting: Radbound University, Nijmegan, Netherlands

Population of Focus: Researchers, policy makers, health practitioners

Sample Size: 144 young people

Age Range: ages 16-27