Online Prevention and Early Intervention in the Field of Psychiatry Using Gamification in Internet Interventions: Practical Experience with a Program Targeting Eating Disorders in Czech Republic
Abstrakt
Many individuals, who suffer from mental disorders, seek professional help late or not at all, which increases the risk of chronification and reduces the chance of recovery. Insufficient services in the place of living, lack of information, shame and fear of stigmatization often prevent seeking help.
The potential to reduce these barriers can be seen in anonymous Internet interventions, many of them were proved to be effective. The main problem reported across the studies is low actual use of the programs when disseminated to the public.
Gamification and serious computer games is seen to have the potential to increase user satisfaction with Internet interventions, motivation to use the programs and thus affect possible outcomes. We show examples of games targeting mental health improvement and awareness that have been scientifically evaluated.
We also provide our experience with the development of a game targeting prevention and early intervention for eating disorders, disseminated in the Czech Republic together with the European prevention program ProYouth.