Effect of purposeful motor games on the development of fundamental motor skills and depression in hospitalized children

Being hospitalized is a restriction that can have a negative effect on the development of the child's areas, including motor and emotional; Therefore, the present study aimed to determine the effect of targeted movement games on the development of fundamental movement skills and depression of hospitalized children.

The design of the current study was a clinical trial with a pre-test and post-test with a control group. The research population consisted of obese children aged 4-7 years admitted to the children's department of Afzalipur Hospital in Kerman province, with various diseases such as diabetes, anemia, rheumatism, and nervous tics, 20 of them were selected purposefully and after performing a pre-test They were divided into two intervention and control groups by simple random method. To collect data, Brunnix-Ozertsky's Motor Skills Test (1978) and Fisher and Long's Depression Scale (1983) were used. Based on the duration of hospitalization until discharge from the hospital, the intervention group based on the length of hospitalization until discharge from the hospital, 7 sessions, 2 hours each day in the hospital game room under the independent variable (targeted movement games), and at the end, a post-test was performed on both groups.

The results showed that targeted movement games were effective in the development of gross and fine motor skills of hospitalized children, and targeted movement games had a significant effect on the depression score except for the subscales (guilt, pleasure).

In general, according to the results of this research, it can be said that the implementation of targeted movement games is a non-drug, new, easy, accessible, and suitable method for improving the movement problems and depression of hospitalized children