Journal article
Internet gaming disorder: Investigating the clinical relevance of a new phenomenon
- Abstract:
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Objective: The American Psychiatric Association (APA) identified Internet gaming disorder as a new potential psychiatric disorder and has recognized that little is known about the prevalence, validity, or cross-cultural robustness of proposed Internet gaming disorder criteria. In response to this gap in our understanding, the present study, a first for this research topic, estimated the period prevalence of this new potential psychiatric disorder using APA guidance, examined the validity of its proposed indicators, evaluated reliability cross-culturally and across genders, compared it to gold-standard research on gambling addiction and problem gaming, and estimated its impact on physical, social, and mental health.
Method: Four survey studies (N=18,932) with large international cohorts employed an open-science methodology wherein the analysis plans for confirmatory hypotheses were registered prior to data collection.
Results: Among those who played games, more than 2 out of 3 did not report any symptoms of Internet gaming disorder, and findings showed that a very small proportion of the general population (between 0.3% and 1.0%) might qualify for a potential acute diagnosis of Internet gaming disorder. Comparison to gambling disorder revealed that Internet-based games may be significantly less addictive than gambling and similarly dysregulating as electronic games more generally.
Conclusions: The evidence linking Internet gaming disorder to game engagement was strong, but links to physical, social, and mental health outcomes were decidedly mixed.
- Publication status:
- Published
- Peer review status:
- Peer reviewed
Actions
Access Document
- Files:
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(Preview, Accepted manuscript, pdf, 1.3MB, Terms of use)
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- Publisher copy:
- 10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.16020224
Authors
- Publisher:
- American Psychiatric Publishing
- Journal:
- American Journal of Psychiatry More from this journal
- Volume:
- 174
- Issue:
- 3
- Pages:
- 230-236
- Publication date:
- 2016-11-04
- Acceptance date:
- 2016-08-11
- DOI:
- EISSN:
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1535-7228
- ISSN:
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0002-953X
- Language:
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English
- Keywords:
- Pubs id:
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pubs:643825
- UUID:
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uuid:4ddb14ef-3a46-4248-b24f-80308f2e2a0e
- Local pid:
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pubs:643825
- Source identifiers:
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643825
- Deposit date:
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2016-09-15
- ARK identifier:
Terms of use
- Copyright holder:
- American Psychiatric Association
- Copyright date:
- 2016
- Rights statement:
- Copyright © American Psychiatric Association.
- Notes:
- This is the accepted manuscript version of the article. The final version is available online from American Psychiatric Publishing at https://doi.org/10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.16020224
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