Evaluating the effect of action-like video game play and of casual video game play on anxiety in adolescents with elevated anxiety: protocol for a multi-center, parallel group, assessor-blind, randomized controlled trial.

Background: Adolescence is a critical period for the onset and maintenance of anxiety disorders, which raises the importance of intervening early; one possibility of doing so is via digital interventions. Within that research field, at least two important research paths have been explored in the past years. On the one hand, the anxiolytic effect of casual video games has been tested as such gaming activity may distract away from anxious thoughts through the induction of flow and redirection of attention toward the game and thus away of anxious thoughts.