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Category: Project

Description: Objective: Two recent systematic reviews have surveyed the existing evidence for the effectiveness of active videogames in children/adolescents and in elderly people. In the present study, effect sizes were added to these systematic reviews and meta-analyses were performed. Method: All reviewed studies were considered for inclusion in the meta-analyses, but only studies were included which investigated the effectiveness of active videogames, employed an experimental design, and used actual health outcomes as the outcome measures (BMI for children/adolescents, N=5, and functional balance for the elderly, N=6). Results: The average effect of active videogames in children and adolescents was small and non-significant: Hedges’ g = 0.20 (95% CI: -0.08 - 0.48). Limited heterogeneity was observed and no moderator analyses were performed. For the effect of active videogames on functional balance in the elderly, the analyses revealed a medium-sized and significant effect of g = 0.68 (95% CI: 0.13 – 1.24). For the elderly studies, substantial heterogeneity was observed. Moderator analyses showed that there were no significant effects of using a no-treatment control group versus an alternative treatment control group, or of using games that were especially created for health-promotion purposes versus off-the-shelf games. Also, intervention duration and frequency, sample size, study quality and dropout did not significantly moderate the effect of active videogames. Conclusion: The results of these meta-analyses provide preliminary evidence that active videogames can have positive effects on relevant outcome measures in children/adolescents and elderly individuals.