Jung Eunie Yoon Kyung, Yu Jiadong
Department of Counseling and School Psychology, Benerd College, University of the Pacific, Stockton, CA 95211, USA.
California School of Professional Psychology, Alliant University, Fresno Campus, Fresno, CA 93727, USA.
Healthcare (Basel). 2025 Aug 27;13(17):2140. doi: 10.3390/healthcare13172140.
As the world's population of older adults continues to grow rapidly, combating loneliness and social isolation has become an emerging health concern for this group. Though there has been increasing interest within the scientific community in exploring digital games as an intervention for loneliness, research on gaming as an intervention is a relatively new field of study. This scoping review examines the current state of research on the impact of digital gaming on loneliness in the older adult population and was conducted in accordance with the 2018 Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses extension for Scoping Reviews (PRISMA-ScR) guidelines. A total of 317 potentially relevant studies were identified through database searches, and of these, 278 studies were excluded due to failure to meet inclusion criteria. The full texts of 39 articles were assessed for eligibility, resulting in 9 articles being included in this scoping review. Some important findings from our study include the central role of social interaction in addressing loneliness and the potential for interventions targeting both physical and mental well-being to have a more significant impact on alleviating loneliness. We also found that while many studies reported positive effects of gaming interventions, some findings were contradictory, suggesting that the relationship between gaming and loneliness is complex and moderated by multiple factors. Recommendations for future research include expanding investigations to outside of East Asia (where the majority of existing studies were conducted) to the United States, Africa, India, or Europe.
随着全球老年人口持续快速增长，应对孤独和社会隔离已成为这一群体新出现的健康问题。尽管科学界对探索数字游戏作为解决孤独问题的干预措施的兴趣日益浓厚，但将游戏作为一种干预手段的研究是一个相对较新的研究领域。本综述探讨了数字游戏对老年人群孤独感影响的研究现状，并按照2018年系统评价和Meta分析扩展版的范围综述优先报告项目（PRISMA-ScR）指南进行。通过数据库检索共识别出317项潜在相关研究，其中278项研究因未满足纳入标准而被排除。对39篇文章的全文进行了资格评估，最终9篇文章被纳入本范围综述。我们研究的一些重要发现包括社交互动在解决孤独问题中的核心作用，以及针对身心健康的干预措施在减轻孤独感方面可能产生更显著影响。我们还发现，虽然许多研究报告了游戏干预的积极效果，但一些研究结果相互矛盾，这表明游戏与孤独之间的关系很复杂，且受多种因素调节。对未来研究的建议包括将调查范围从东亚以外地区（现有大多数研究在此开展）扩大到美国、非洲、印度或欧洲。
