Can video games help fill in the gap between kids who need mental health care and the dearth of providers? Elizabeth Tracey reports

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Mental health issues are skyrocketing among US youth, data shows. Barry Bryant, a psychiatrist at Johns Hopkins, wondered whether technology might be able to step into this gap with a recent study looking at video games for three common mental health conditions in children and adolescents.

Bryant: There is a huge demand for pediatric mental healthcare services that does not line up with the current supply of providers. Even if you have twice as many providers we still wouldn't be able to meet the demand, so we wanted to look at technology as a way to help bridge that gap. In order to make this technology as engaging as possible for children and adolescents we looked at gamification as a way to get kids excited about it. We looked at all the randomized controlled trials for gamified, that is video game interventions, that were designed to treat kids ADHD, depression and anxiety.                :35

Bryant says some of the games did help. At Johns Hopkins, I’m Elizabeth Tracey.