The effect of game therapy on reducing depression, anxiety and stress among first year undergraduate students during final examination / Muhammad Nashrin Bahrin

Introduction: First year undergraduates not only encounter with being independence living butal so facing academic stressor, socializations, financial problems, and time constraint. Preparation for examinations is the main causes contribute to depression, anxiety and stress among students. Games therapy introduced to manage their depression, anxiety and stress level. Dam Haji is the one of the type of games that has the potential to reduce depression, anxiety, and stress to maximized academic performance. Objectives: The main objectives of this study are to examine the effectiveness of game therapy on reducing depression, anxiety, and stress during final examination for first year undergraduate students. Meanwhile, the specific objectives are to identify the baseline level of depression,anxiety and stress score in both intervention and control groups, to compare the depression, anxiety, and stress score for pre and post of both groups, and to examine the incidence of depression, anxiety and stress in post-test intervention group.Study method: This study is quasi-experimental design conducted at University Teknologi Mara(UiTM) Puncak Alam in December 2014, 48 first year undergraduate students from four different programs in the Faculty of Health Science. Participants divided into two group, control group (n= 24) and intervention group (n=24). Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale used for the pre-test as the baseline data and post-test after the intervention in this study. Participants in intervention group play the game 5 times in a week before final examination. Results: Data was analyzed using independent t-test and Man Whitney test. With p-value 0.21for pre-test while for post-test p-value is 0.91 that mean there are no statistically significant between baseline data for both group. It seems there were experiencing the same level of depression, anxiety, and stress in preparation for the upcoming examination. The highest score among nursing students has 33.3% in mild level of stress and 33.3% in moderate level of anxiety are because of time constraint to finish the difficult syllabus and adaptation of new environment as a first year students.