Baghaei Nilufar, Hach Sylvia, Liang Hai-Ning, Brucker Marvin
Otago Polytechnic Auckland (OPAIC), Auckland, New Zealand.
School of Community Studies, Unitec Institute of Technology, Auckland, New Zealand.
Front Public Health. 2019 Aug 8;7:220. doi: 10.3389/fpubh.2019.00220. eCollection 2019.
Mental health conditions pose a major challenge to healthcare providers and society at large. The World Health Organization predicts that by 2030 mental illnesses will be the leading disease burden globally. Mental health services are struggling to meet the needs of users and arguably fail to reach large proportions of those in need. According to New Zealand Mental Health Foundation, one in five will experience a serious mood disorder, including depression, at some time in their life. Games for Health including those supporting mental health have recently gained a lot of attention. However, game interface preferences for users with a history of mental health conditions have not been systematically studied, making it difficult to determine what game features may attract and further engage users affected by mental health conditions. We present MoodJumper, a prototype Android mobile game, which enables players to jump to the top of the level by steering the avatar from platform to platform, gradually gaining height and collecting coins on the way up. We conducted a preliminary study ( = ), in which participants were able to modify different settings of the game (background color, dark/light, character movement, gender, and music), while their gaming behavior was tracked. The results show that regardless of self-reported history of mood disorder, the majority of participants prefer the dark and colored layout setting and there were no differences in gaming variables including session duration and high scores. This represents a first indication that history of mood disorder does not affect user preferences for game interface settings. It will be important to follow up with data on users currently affected by low mood. Systematic study of game interface preferences in users with mood disorder constitutes a vital step in being able to harness the potential power of games for supporting mental health.
心理健康问题给医疗保健提供者乃至整个社会带来了重大挑战。世界卫生组织预测，到2030年，精神疾病将成为全球主要的疾病负担。心理健康服务难以满足用户需求，可以说未能惠及很大一部分有需求的人。根据新西兰心理健康基金会的数据，五分之一的人在人生的某个阶段会经历严重的情绪障碍，包括抑郁症。包括那些支持心理健康的游戏在内的健康游戏最近受到了广泛关注。然而，对于有心理健康问题史的用户的游戏界面偏好尚未进行系统研究，因此很难确定哪些游戏功能可能吸引并进一步留住受心理健康问题影响的用户。我们展示了MoodJumper，一款安卓手机游戏原型，玩家可以通过控制角色在各个平台间跳跃，逐渐升高并在上升过程中收集金币，从而跳到关卡顶部。我们进行了一项初步研究（ = ），参与者能够修改游戏的不同设置（背景颜色、明暗、角色移动、性别和音乐），同时跟踪他们的游戏行为。结果表明，无论参与者自我报告的情绪障碍史如何，大多数人都更喜欢深色和有颜色的布局设置，并且在包括游戏时长和高分在内的游戏变量方面没有差异。这初步表明情绪障碍史不会影响用户对游戏界面设置的偏好。跟进目前情绪低落的用户的数据将很重要。对情绪障碍用户的游戏界面偏好进行系统研究是能够利用游戏的潜在力量来支持心理健康的关键一步。
