A UJI thesis presents a video game for the treatment of mild or moderate depressive symptomatology, favourably evaluated by therapists and patients

Depression is the most prevalent mental health disorder in our society, the leading cause of disability and closely linked to suicide. Although there are some psychological treatments, they only reach a small fraction of those who need them. The use of smartphones is a possible solution to expand access to these treatments; however, interventions based on these devices still face high dropout rates.

The doctoral thesis defended by Águeda Gómez Cambronero under the title "Horizon: Resilience; a psychological intervention based on a serious mobile game for depressive symptomatology", directed by Sven Casteleyn, from the Geospatial Technologies Group (GEOTEC) and Adriana Mira Pastor, from the Laboratory of Psychology and Technology (LabPsiTec), has designed a psychological intervention based on a serious mobile game for depressive symptomatology and, as far as is known, it would be the first video game of these characteristics that incorporates data from the smartphone's movement sensor as an element of the game.

It is a city-building game in which the player has to control a city in order to make it progress and strengthen the resilience of its inhabitants. It is based on cognitive behavioural therapy as well as positive psychology techniques, with a special emphasis on physical activity detected through the smartphone's movement sensor. It has combined innovative techniques from computer science and psychology to offer an alternative and novel form of treatment.

The game has been evaluated both quantitatively and qualitatively by therapists and patients, who have rated it very positively as a treatment for mild to moderate depressive symptomatology, and have expressed their desire to play. It combines different genres and psychological approaches, as well as encouraging physical activity, and includes the design of a protocol for a future randomised controlled pilot study that will evaluate its effectiveness on a preliminary basis.

Águeda Gómez Cambronero has become the first doctoral student to graduate from the Bachelor's Degree in Video Game Design and Development, which was introduced more than a decade ago. After obtaining her degree in 2017, she studied the Master's Degree in Intelligent Systems at the UJI in 2018 and joined the PhD Programme in Computer Science at the same university, with an FPI grant from the Generalitat Valenciana. During the completion of the doctoral thesis on serious games for mental health, which has been carried out within the research activity of the GEOTEC group, she has collaborated in different projects of the group and the University Institute of New Imaging Technologies (INIT).

The Universitat Jaume I has a solid and long history of research in the field of video games, which favoured the implementation of a multidisciplinary degree in this subject more than ten years ago. Research already covered areas such as interactive visualisation of virtual worlds, audiovisual production and video game development at the beginning of the degree course.

On the computer science side, there are groups such as Geospatial Technologies, in which the thesis and research work of the new doctoral candidate is framed; Applied Artificial Intelligence and Data Analysis (IA3); Video Games (GAMERS) or the Interactive Visualisation Centre, which are complemented by teams such as the Laboratory of Psychology and Technology (LabPsiTec), in the field of health, with which the PhD student has also worked, or the group Research in Technologies Applied to Audiovisual Communication (ITACA) in the area of communication.