Chess Training as add-on Intervention for Adolescents With Psychiatric and Psychosomatic Disorders

In the planned study, the effect of chess training on the cognitive abilities of children and adolescents with psychiatric and psychosomatic illnesses will be investigated in a naturalistic setting. Furthermore, the effects on therapy success and quality of life will be determined.Despite the thoroughly positive results, CRT has not yet been included in the official guidelines as an intervention in standard therapy; this is due, among other things, to too few studies and too little knowledge in the field of child and adolescent psychiatry. The planned study aims to fill the research gap in the field of chess training as an adjunctive intervention in children and adolescents and to provide further evidence on the relevance of CRT in child and adolescent psychiatry.

The hypotheses of the proposed study are:

1. chess training as a six-week add-on intervention will improve cognitive functioning in adolescents with psychiatric/psychosomatic disorders compared to standard treatment.
2. chess training as a six-week add-on intervention improves quality of life in adolescents with psychiatric/psychosomatic disorders compared to standard treatment.
3. chess training as a six-week add-on intervention positively influences the course of therapy in adolescents with psychiatric/psychosomatic illnesses compared to standard treatment.

Study Overview

• Status: Recruiting
• Conditions: Children and Adolescents Inpatient in Psychiatric Hospital
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Chess training

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 92
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Sabine Vollstädt-Klein, Prof. Dr.; Phone Number: 3912 +49-621/1703; Email: s.vollstaedt-klein@zi-mannheim.de

Study Locations

• Germany
  • Mannheim, Germany
    • Recruiting
    • Central Institute of Mental Health
    • Contact: Sabine Vollstädt-Klein; Email: s.vollstaedt-klein@zi-mannheim.de

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 13 years to 17 years (Child)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• Inpatient treatment at the Clinic for Psychiatry and Psychotherapy of Childhood and Adolescence, ZI Mannheim
• Age between 13 and 17 years
• Sufficient ability to answer questions verbally and in written form
• Ability to give consent by patients and their parents after detailed verbal and written explanation
• Consent of patients and parents must be given in paper form

Exclusion Criteria:

• Date of inpatient admission more than 3 weeks ago
• Withdrawal of informed consent
• Severe psychiatric, neurological and internal medical comorbidities

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Treatment
• Allocation: Non-Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: None (Open Label)

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
Experimental: Chess training group; group receiving additional chess training	Behavioral: Chess training; The chess training, which takes place as a measure for CRT with the children and adolescents, is carried out by the concept of the Munich Chess Academy. The concept applied here, "Chess according to the King's Plan", represents a holistic concept. Especially prepared for children and adolescents, theoretical aspects are illustrated in games and exercises.
No Intervention: control group; group receiving standard therapy only

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in comorbidities	Youth Self Report (YSR, Achenbach 1991b)	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training
Change in depressive symptoms	Beck Depression Inventory II (BDI-II, Beck, Steer, Brown 1996)	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training
Change in anxiety symptoms	Beck Anyxiety Inventory (BAI, deutsche Version Margraf, Ehlers 2007)	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training
Change in Quality of life	The KIDSCREEN Group Europe. (2006).	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training
Change of the overall functional level	Global assessment of functioning (Diagnostic screening measure according to DSM-IV)	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training
Change in mental flexibility	Dimensional Card Sorting Task (Zelazo et al., 2014	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training
Change in attentional capacity	d2 Test of Attention (Brickenkamp 2002)	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training
Change in Reaction inhibition	Go-No-Go Task (Sebastian et al., 2013)	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training
Change in Fluid intelligence	Stop Signal Task (Sebastian et al., 2013)	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training
Change in reaction time	Simple Reaction Time Task (Woods, Wyma, Yund, Herron, & Reed, 2015)	2 time points: before and after 6 weeks chess training

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Central Institute of Mental Health, Mannheim
• Collaborators: Munich Chess academy

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): October 1, 2022
• Primary Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2024
• Study Completion (Estimated): July 1, 2024

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: December 30, 2022
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: January 24, 2023
• First Posted (Actual): January 26, 2023

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): March 29, 2024
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: March 28, 2024
• Last Verified: March 1, 2024

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: cognitive remediation; decision making; working memory; Chess training; executiv control; chess; cognitive change; Quality of life in adolescents
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Neurologic Manifestations; Somatoform Disorders; Psychophysiologic Disorders
• Other Study ID Numbers: 2021-593

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No