{"status":"ok","message-type":"work","message-version":"1.0.0","message":{"indexed":{"date-parts":[[2026,6,30]],"date-time":"2026-06-30T19:07:09Z","timestamp":1782846429106,"version":"3.54.5"},"reference-count":89,"publisher":"JMIR Publications Inc.","content-domain":{"domain":[],"crossmark-restriction":false},"short-container-title":["JMIR Form Res"],"abstract":"<jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Background<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>Loneliness is a form of psychological distress associated with increased risk of depression, anxiety, and adverse health outcomes across the life span. This study evaluates an online gaming\u2011based community intervention that combines professionally facilitated groups, commercial video games, and skills\u2011focused workshops for adults who play video games.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Objective<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>This study aimed to examine the feasibility of this health\u2011supporting gaming community and to characterize 30\u2011 and 60\u2011day changes in depression, anxiety, psychological well\u2011being, and psychological flexibility, as well as heterogeneous trajectories of depressive symptoms.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Methods<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>In a longitudinal observational study, adults in the United States self\u2011enrolled in a gaming therapeutics community hosted on Discord. Participants completed baseline, 30\u2011day, and 60\u2011day assessments including the Patient Health Questionnaire\u20119 (PHQ\u20119), Generalized Anxiety Disorder\u20117 Scale, World Health Organization-5 Well\u2011Being Index, and Psychological Flexibility Scale (Psy\u2011Flex). Of 438 participants with 30\u2011day data, 403 met inclusion criteria for longitudinal analyses and 157 (35.6%) completed the 60\u2011day survey. Within\u2011person change scores and standardized mean differences were calculated, and latent growth mixture modeling was used to identify depressive\u2011symptom trajectories and baseline predictors of nonresponse versus improvement.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Results<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>At baseline, mean PHQ\u20119 score was 13.37 (SD 6.04), decreasing to 10.27 (SD 5.80) at 60 days (Cohen d=0.52). Mean Generalized Anxiety Disorder\u20117 scores decreased from 11.23 (SD 5.24) to 8.25 (SD 4.22) (Cohen d=0.60). Psy\u2011Flex scores increased from 11.51 (SD 4.30) to 12.55 (SD 4.37; Cohen d=0.24), and World Health Organization\u20115 Well\u2011Being Index scores increased from 7.86 (SD 3.82) to 8.08 (SD 4.44; Cohen d=0.24). Latent growth mixture modeling identified 3 depressive\u2011symptom trajectories: a low group (229\/438, 52.3%; baseline PHQ\u20119 mean 8.80 (SD 3.67); 60\u2011day mean 7.64, SD 3.87), a chronic group (118\/438, 26.9%; baseline mean 18.30 (SD 4.03); 60\u2011day mean 16.78, SD 4.10), and an improvers group (91\/438, 20.8%; baseline mean 18.52, SD 3.13; 60\u2011day mean 7.42, SD 4.27). In logistic regression among participants with moderate\u2011to\u2011severe baseline depression, a gender identity other than woman was associated with lower odds of belonging to the Improvers versus Chronic group (odds ratio 0.42, 95% CI 0.19-0.94). Post hoc analyses indicated lower odds of improvement for nonbinary participants compared with women (odds ratio 0.25, 95% CI 0.10-0.59). No other baseline characteristics significantly distinguished chronic versus improving trajectories.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>\n                  <jats:sec>\n                    <jats:title>Conclusions<\/jats:title>\n                    <jats:p>A professionally moderated, gaming\u2011based community intervention was feasible to deliver, engaged a diverse sample of adult gamers, and was associated with medium\u2011sized reductions in depressive and anxiety symptoms and small improvements in well\u2011being and psychological flexibility over 60 days. A subgroup moved from moderate\u2011to\u2011severe symptoms to subthreshold depressive symptoms. These findings support further controlled evaluation of health\u2011supporting gaming communities as a scalable support and potential preventive context for adult gamers experiencing distress.<\/jats:p>\n                  <\/jats:sec>","DOI":"10.2196\/82428","type":"journal-article","created":{"date-parts":[[2026,1,9]],"date-time":"2026-01-09T03:45:06Z","timestamp":1767930306000},"page":"e82428","source":"Crossref","is-referenced-by-count":0,"title":["Gaming\u2011Based Community Intervention for Loneliness in Adult Gamers: Longitudinal Observational Study"],"prefix":"10.2196","volume":"10","author":[{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0009-0009-9517-6618","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Christopher","family":"Neu","sequence":"first","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0001-8275-6765","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Thomas D","family":"Hull","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]},{"ORCID":"https:\/\/orcid.org\/0000-0003-4209-6939","authenticated-orcid":false,"given":"Matteo","family":"Malgaroli","sequence":"additional","affiliation":[],"role":[{"vocabulary":"crossref","role":"author"}]}],"member":"1010","published-online":{"date-parts":[[2026,2,10]]},"reference":[{"key":"ref1","unstructured":"Health effects of social isolation and lonelinessCenters for Disease Control and Prevention20232026-01-13https:\/\/www.cdc.gov\/social-connectedness\/risk-factors\/index.html"},{"key":"ref2","doi-asserted-by":"publisher","DOI":"10.1111\/psyp.13031"},{"key":"ref3","author":"Finkelman, EM","year":"2017","journal-title":"Vital Directions for Health & Health Care: An Initiative of the National Academy of 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