Abstract
Cancer among children may produce depressive symptoms which affect the will
power of children against the disease. Conventional psychotherapy is difficult to
conduct with these children along with the prolonged physical treatment. Hence
researchers designed special video games to use with these children. 3D-GIT(Three
dimensional graphic imagery therapy)is a game designed for children diagnosed
with cancer. The game reduces the depressive symptoms in these children. The
objective of this study was to check the effectiveness of 3D-GIT game in reducing
depression. It was hypothesized that patients who play 3D-GIT game will show less
depressive symptoms on post-test as compared to patients who do not play this
game. A sample of 60 indoor children aged 6-12 years receiving treatment for
cancer (first stage)was pre-tested on CES-DC scale. After that, 30 patients played
the video game twice a week for a month while the other 30 patients did not play
any game. Both the groups were re-tested by using the same scale. Results
indicated that 3D-GIT game reduced the depression of children suffering from
cancer (pretest=50.7, posttest= 44.93), while patients in control group showed an
increase in depression (pretest=47.36, post-test=50.16). Thus these results
supported the hypothesis of the current study and it can be concluded that GIT
game can be used as a treatment of depression among children who are under
medical treatment for cancer.
