ORIGINAL RESEARCH article
Front. Psychol.
Sec. Health Psychology
Volume 16 - 2025 | doi: 10.3389/fpsyg.2025.1595174
The Effect of Empathy Intervention and VR exergames on Social Anxiety in Left-behind Children
Provisionally accepted
- 1Hunan University of Science and Engineering, Hunan, China
- 2College of Physical Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, Hunan Province, China
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This study investigated the comparative effectiveness of empathy intervention and virtual-reality exergames in reducing social anxiety among rural left-behind children (RLBC) in China. A total of sixty RLBC from Huangdu Primary School in Shaodong City, Hunan Province were randomly assigned to three groups: the Empathy Intervention Group (EG), the VR Exergames Group (VG), and the Control Group (CG), with 20 participants in each group. The Children's Social Anxiety Scale (CSAS) was administered at baseline (T0), post-intervention (T1, Week 12), and 4-week follow-up (T2). Results revealed a significant group-by-time interaction in assessing the effects of different intervention strategies on RLBC. Prior to the intervention, no statistically significant differences were observed between the three groups (P > 0.05). Post-intervention assessment showed significant reductions in both overall scale scores and its subscale scores. Notably, the VR exergames intervention demonstrated a more marked effect compared to the empathy intervention. However, there was no statistically significant difference between T2 and T1 (P > 0.05). At T2, VG maintained significant gains (P < 0.05), whereas EG exhibited delayed yet sustained improvement (P < 0.05), suggesting distinct temporal trajectories. The control group remained stable across all assessments (P > 0.05).
Keywords: rural left-behind children, social anxiety, empathy intervention, VR exergames, psychological assessment
Received: 17 Mar 2025; Accepted: 04 Aug 2025.
Copyright: © 2025 Xiao, Peng and Lu. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License (CC BY). The use, distribution or reproduction in other forums is permitted, provided the original author(s) or licensor are credited and that the original publication in this journal is cited, in accordance with accepted academic practice. No use, distribution or reproduction is permitted which does not comply with these terms.
* Correspondence: Chunxia Lu, College of Physical Education, Hunan Normal University, Changsha, 410081, Hunan Province, China
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