State anxiety and frontal alpha asymmetry effects of the REThink online video game for children and adolescents: A six-month follow-up

Background: Emotional disorders are the most prevalent mental health conditions affecting children and adolescents. Thus, it becomes essential to develop and test early intervention strategies that are accessible and attractive as therapeutic strategies and can effectively improve youth's emotional and psychobiological reactivity to distress. Methods: A randomized control trial compared the prevention effects of a newly-developed therapeutic game based on Rational Emotive Behavior Education, REThink, to those of a standard, face-to-face group Rational Emotive Behavior Education (REBE) and those of a waitlist. Out of 142 healthy children and adolescents who completed the intervention stage, 137 completed follow-up assessment measuring subjective anxiety and biological stress reactivity in an impromptu speech task. Results: No differences were found between groups at follow-up in terms of subjective state anxiety variations between baseline, anticipation, speech and recovery. In terms of the psychobiological index, results showed an increase in left asymmetry for the REThink group at post-test and follow-up compared to pre-intervention levels. The same trend was found for the WL group, but not for the REBE group. Conclusions: Preliminary results suggest that decreases in the biological reactivity can be maintained in the long run following a therapeutic video game for children and adolescents. Future research needs to clarify the adequate usage of the therapeutic videogames to bring significant improvements in the psychobiological functioning of the youths.