REThink Online Video Game for Children and Adolescents: Effects on State Anxiety and Frontal Alpha Asymmetry

Emotional disorders affect numerous children and adolescents worldwide; thus, developing accessible prevention tools to reduce associated burden in youths is of crucial importance. We conducted a randomized controlled study to examine the effects of the newly developed REThink therapeutic game on reducing the subjective emotional reactivity to a stressor in children and adolescents and in modulating their frontal EEG asymmetry. A number of 165 children and adolescents were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: REThink game, a Rational Emotive Behavior Education (REBE) intervention, or a Waitlist. Participants were asked to complete an impromptu speech twice, before and after the interventions, while their anxiety and brain activity were recorded. Results suggest that relative to the Waitlist and REBE interventions, the REThink game was effective in reducing biological reactivity manifested by children and adolescents in response to speech, but not for modulating subjective anxiety. Present results provide further evidence for the potential benefits of therapeutic games in promoting mental health in children and adolescents.