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Mental health service users' and professionals' relationship with games and gaming

BACKGROUND: Games and elements of gamification can be utilized in mental healthcare to provide customized interventions for the service users. However, very little evidence exists as to what kind of experiences service users and professionals have towards games and gaming, and what their perceptions...

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Autores principales: Hopia, Hanna, Siitonen, Marko, Raitio, Katja
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: SAGE Publications 2018
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6034349/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31463073
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2055207618779718
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author Hopia, Hanna
Siitonen, Marko
Raitio, Katja
author_facet Hopia, Hanna
Siitonen, Marko
Raitio, Katja
author_sort Hopia, Hanna
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Games and elements of gamification can be utilized in mental healthcare to provide customized interventions for the service users. However, very little evidence exists as to what kind of experiences service users and professionals have towards games and gaming, and what their perceptions of the phenomenon are. This sort of information is needed to help professionals put game-based interventions actively into practice in mental health services. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: The objective is to describe the experiences and perceptions of digital games and gaming from the perspectives of mental health service users and mental health professionals. METHODS: In this qualitative study, data consisted of interviews of 23 mental health service users and professionals working in the mental health field. We conducted altogether 39 interviews. Sixteen of the participants were interviewed twice. Main categories and subcategories were identified using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: The analysis revealed four distinct orientations towards games and gaming: (a) compulsive gaming; (b) closet gaming; (c) gaming as a hobby; and (d) late bloomers. Each group was characterized by different personal histories, experiences, conceptions and attitudes regarding gaming and digital games. CONCLUSION: When attempting to implement a game-based intervention in mental health services, it is essential to recognize the different attitudes that both service users and staff exhibit concerning games and gaming. The attitudes of service users and professionals described in this study can be utilized in the implementation of game-based methods as part of care and rehabilitation in mental health services.
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spelling pubmed-60343492019-08-28 Mental health service users' and professionals' relationship with games and gaming Hopia, Hanna Siitonen, Marko Raitio, Katja Digit Health Original Research BACKGROUND: Games and elements of gamification can be utilized in mental healthcare to provide customized interventions for the service users. However, very little evidence exists as to what kind of experiences service users and professionals have towards games and gaming, and what their perceptions of the phenomenon are. This sort of information is needed to help professionals put game-based interventions actively into practice in mental health services. RESEARCH OBJECTIVES: The objective is to describe the experiences and perceptions of digital games and gaming from the perspectives of mental health service users and mental health professionals. METHODS: In this qualitative study, data consisted of interviews of 23 mental health service users and professionals working in the mental health field. We conducted altogether 39 interviews. Sixteen of the participants were interviewed twice. Main categories and subcategories were identified using qualitative content analysis. RESULTS: The analysis revealed four distinct orientations towards games and gaming: (a) compulsive gaming; (b) closet gaming; (c) gaming as a hobby; and (d) late bloomers. Each group was characterized by different personal histories, experiences, conceptions and attitudes regarding gaming and digital games. CONCLUSION: When attempting to implement a game-based intervention in mental health services, it is essential to recognize the different attitudes that both service users and staff exhibit concerning games and gaming. The attitudes of service users and professionals described in this study can be utilized in the implementation of game-based methods as part of care and rehabilitation in mental health services. SAGE Publications 2018-06-05 /pmc/articles/PMC6034349/ /pubmed/31463073 http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2055207618779718 Text en © The Author(s) 2018 http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/ Creative Commons NonCommercial-NoDerivs CC BY-NC-ND: This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial-NoDerivs 4.0 License (http://www.creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc-nd/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work as published without adaptation or alteration, without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access pages (https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).
spellingShingle Original Research
Hopia, Hanna
Siitonen, Marko
Raitio, Katja
Mental health service users' and professionals' relationship with games and gaming
title Mental health service users' and professionals' relationship with games and gaming
title_full Mental health service users' and professionals' relationship with games and gaming
title_fullStr Mental health service users' and professionals' relationship with games and gaming
title_full_unstemmed Mental health service users' and professionals' relationship with games and gaming
title_short Mental health service users' and professionals' relationship with games and gaming
title_sort mental health service users' and professionals' relationship with games and gaming
topic Original Research
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC6034349/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/31463073
http://dx.doi.org/10.1177/2055207618779718
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