Vil Du?! incorporation of a serious game in therapy for sexually abused children and adolescents.

Child sexual abuse Evaluation Mixed-methods triangulation design Psychotherapy Serious games

Journal

Child and adolescent psychiatry and mental health
ISSN: 1753-2000
Titre abrégé: Child Adolesc Psychiatry Ment Health
Pays: England
ID NLM: 101297974

Informations de publication

Date de publication:
25 May 2021
Historique:
received: 20 11 2020
accepted: 06 05 2021
entrez: 26 5 2021
pubmed: 27 5 2021
medline: 27 5 2021
Statut: epublish

Résumé

Talking about experiences of sexual abuse in therapy is difficult for children and adolescents, amongst others due to a lack of vocabulary to describe the situation, avoidance, or feelings of shame, fear, and self-blame. The serious game Vil Du?! was developed to help children open up about sexual experiences. Vil Du?! is a non-verbal communication game, which resembles a dress-up game, in which children can show the therapist what happened to them. The current study examined how and for which therapy components Vil Du?! was used by therapists. We used a mixed-methods triangulation design. Therapists filled out online surveys about the use of Vil Du?! with 23 clients (M Merged qualitative and quantitative data revealed that therapists acknowledged the usefulness of Vil Du?! mostly for the therapy components trauma narration and processing, and psycho-education about sexuality. In addition, Vil Du?! might be most useful for clients who have difficulty with disclosing sexual abuse experiences, due to limited verbal abilities or feelings of guilt, shame, avoidance, and tension. Recommendations from this study were incorporated in a user manual as a first step toward more systematic and broad implementation of Vil Du?! in the treatment of young sexual abuse victims. A next step is to test whether implementing Vil Du?! in therapy is effective in reducing the negative mental health consequences of sexual abuse for children and adolescents.

Sections du résumé

BACKGROUND BACKGROUND
Talking about experiences of sexual abuse in therapy is difficult for children and adolescents, amongst others due to a lack of vocabulary to describe the situation, avoidance, or feelings of shame, fear, and self-blame. The serious game Vil Du?! was developed to help children open up about sexual experiences. Vil Du?! is a non-verbal communication game, which resembles a dress-up game, in which children can show the therapist what happened to them. The current study examined how and for which therapy components Vil Du?! was used by therapists.
METHODS METHODS
We used a mixed-methods triangulation design. Therapists filled out online surveys about the use of Vil Du?! with 23 clients (M
RESULTS RESULTS
Merged qualitative and quantitative data revealed that therapists acknowledged the usefulness of Vil Du?! mostly for the therapy components trauma narration and processing, and psycho-education about sexuality. In addition, Vil Du?! might be most useful for clients who have difficulty with disclosing sexual abuse experiences, due to limited verbal abilities or feelings of guilt, shame, avoidance, and tension.
CONCLUSIONS CONCLUSIONS
Recommendations from this study were incorporated in a user manual as a first step toward more systematic and broad implementation of Vil Du?! in the treatment of young sexual abuse victims. A next step is to test whether implementing Vil Du?! in therapy is effective in reducing the negative mental health consequences of sexual abuse for children and adolescents.

Identifiants

pubmed: 34034787
doi: 10.1186/s13034-021-00377-3
pii: 10.1186/s13034-021-00377-3
pmc: PMC8147575
doi:

Types de publication

Journal Article

Langues

eng

Pagination

25

Subventions

Organisme : Fonds Wetenschappelijk Onderzoek Seksualiteit
ID : 18.015
Organisme : K.F. Hein fonds
ID : K.F. Hein fonds

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Auteurs

Joyce J Endendijk (JJ)

Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3548 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands. J.J.Endendijk@uu.nl.

Henny K Tichelaar (HK)

Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3548 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Menno Deen (M)

Lapp, Hoveniersstraat 11, 3513 XS, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Maja Deković (M)

Child and Adolescent Studies, Utrecht University, Heidelberglaan 1, 3548 CS, Utrecht, The Netherlands.

Classifications MeSH