Digital Interventions for Emotion Regulation in Children and Early Adolescents: Systematic Review and Meta-analysis

Abstract

Background Difficulties in emotion regulation are common in adolescence and are associated with poor social and mental health outcomes. However, psychological therapies that promote adaptive emotion regulation may be inaccessible and unattractive to youth. Digital interventions may help address this need. Objective The aim of this systematic review and meta-analysis was to synthesize evidence on the efficacy, feasibility, and acceptability of emotion regulation digital interventions in children and early adolescents aged 8 to 14 years. Methods Systematic searches of Web of Science, MEDLINE, PsycINFO, EMBASE, Education Resources Information Centre, ACM Digital Library, and IEEE Xplore up to July 2020 identified 39 studies, of which 11 (28%) were included in the meta-analyses (n=2476 participants). A bespoke tool was used to assess risk of bias. Results The studies evaluated digital games (27/39, 69%), biofeedback (4/39, 10%), virtual or augmented reality (4/39, 10%), and program or multimedia (4/39, 10%) digital interventions in samples classified as diagnosed, at risk, healthy, and universal. The most consistent evidence came from digital games, which reduced negative emotional experience with a small significant effect, largely in youth at risk of anxiety (Hedges g=–0.19, 95% CI –0.34 to –0.04). In general, digital interventions tended to improve emotion regulation, but this effect was not significant (Hedges g=0.19, 95% CI –0.16 to 0.54). Conclusions Most feasibility issues were identified in diagnosed youth, and acceptability was generally high across intervention types and samples. Although there is cause to be optimistic about digital interventions supporting the difficulties that youth experience in emotion regulation, the predominance of early-stage development studies highlights the need for more work in this area.

The Efficacy of Just-In-Time Adaptive Interventions in Augmenting Behavioral Health: Protocol for a Systematic Review (Preprint)

“…Emotion regulation skills are key components of empirically-supported treatments for psychopathology [25,26] and have been shown to mediate and moderate effects of interventions on outcomes [24]. Increasingly, emotion regulation skills have been incorporated into digital health interventions [27][28][29][30].…”

Self-directed digital interventions for the improvement of emotion regulation—effectiveness for mental health and functioning in adolescents: protocol for a systematic review

“…Further, much of the research to date has focused on the delivery of such interventions in person despite a growing number of digital solutions for adolescent emotion regulation and psychopathology 23. Previous research examining the effectiveness of several different digital interventions targeting emotion regulation in adolescents found that, in general, such interventions (eg, digital games and biofeedback) can be effective in improving emotion regulation 29. Digital interventions also have a greater capacity for innovation and engagement with adolescents30 and the potential to extend effective care cost-effectively and sustainably,31 but less is known about how such interventions can be applied at scale to support this population.…”

“…Despite an increase in the number of available self-directed digital interventions for emotion regulation, evidence about their effectiveness among adolescent populations has yet to be synthesised. This review provides an important extension to existing work which has thus far demonstrated the effectiveness of in-person or therapist-supported emotion regulation interventions available for young people (aged 6–24 years),20 as well as the utility of a broad spectrum of digital emotion regulation interventions for adolescents 29. This review takes a more specific focus to develop evidence on a burgeoning number of self-directed , scalable, digital mental health interventions available to adolescents with or without diagnosed psychopathology.…”

Can a web application foster emotional competence in children and adolescents? The case of PandHEMOT®

“…Previous literature demonstrated the efficacy of interventions devoted to enhancing socio‐emotional skills in children and adolescents (Durlak et al, 2022), also through digital interventions (Reynard et al, 2022). However, little research has been focussed on evidence‐based programmes aimed at increasing emotional competence as a key resource to cope with disasters.…”