A pilot study of a group-based intervention for parents of children who engage in excessive gaming

Interventions targeting adolescents with gaming disorder (GD) have been developed and they are shown to be effective in improving adolescents’ GD severity and mental health symptoms. However, the current literature pays little attention to the fact that adolescents’ GD can be a source of distress for their parents, and such distress may in turn impair their relationship and elevate adolescents’ GD severity. Furthermore, adolescents with GD are often reluctant to participate in treatment, which may lead to feelings of frustration and hopelessness in parents. Interventions addressing the needs of parents, not just the needs of adolescents with GD, are therefore needed. This pilot study developed a group intervention for parents of adolescents who engage in excessive gaming. The intervention is based on motivational interviewing and mentalization approaches. A total of 43 participants (n = 23 intervention group; n = 20 control group) were recruited via social services. Using a mixed methods design, the study evaluated the feasibility and acceptability of the intervention: 1) a non-randomized controlled design was used to examine the impacts of the group-based parent intervention on parents’, adolescents’ and relationship outcomes using. Specifically, the primary outcome was parents’ stress and mental health symptoms; and the secondary outcomes included parents’ emotional regulation, parent–adolescent conflicts and adolescents’ GD severity. 2) Parents’ perceived usefulness of the intervention and views regarding the intervention content were collected via individual interviews. This talk will present the study’s results and discuss research and clinical implications of the findings.