Safety and Effectiveness Study: Role Playing Game for Friends and Family of Service Members (RPG)

University of Southern California

Status: Completed

Conditions: Communication

Treatments: Behavioral: Role-playing game

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01807806

USC Subcontract No 10150.003.0

Details and patient eligibility

About

This project is a partnership between Soar Technology, the University of Southern California (USC) Center for Innovation and Research on Veterans and Military Families (CIR) and the USC Creative Media and Behavioral Health Center (CM&BHC) to conduct a Safety and Effectiveness Study (SES) for an educational role-playing game developed by Soar Technology, Inc. The purpose of the intervention to be delivered by Soar Technology is to educate families and friends with the ultimate goal of empowering them to have a conversation with the veteran/service member about readjustment issues. The study will assess the safety and effectiveness of the provided game using personal interviews, play testing, and surveys. The game playing experience is hypothesized to be safe and effective with respect to having conversations with veterans/service members following deployment.

Full description

The intervention is a multi-scenario role playing simulation. Participants view the scenario and answer questions about what has been displayed as typical for post deployment service members. Participants receive immediate feedback with respect to expectations set by simulation developers.

Enrollment: 65 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18 to 86 years old

Volunteers: Accepts Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• must be friend or family member to a military veteran or service member who experienced a deployment no earlier than 2007, or who are currently active and have recently returned from a deployment
• be able to read English
• be reachable via cell phone
• age range 18-86
• daily access to the internet
• have a personal email account for contact
• experience with filling out online surveys, or online shopping, or social media, or playing digital games

Exclusion criteria

• no acute psychopathology based on PHQ-9 and VAS scores at baseline and VAS and PHQ-2 at pre-test
• must not be active duty military personnel or a veteran at the time of the study
• service member or self is not currently receiving treatment at VA or other mental health facility

Trial design

Primary purpose: Other

Allocation: Non-Randomized

Interventional model: Single Group Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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65 participants in 1 patient group

Role-playing game

Experimental group

Description:

All eligible participants were invited to play the role playing game

Treatment:

Behavioral: Role-playing game