ABSTRACT
The 11th Revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) formally recognized gaming disorder as an addictive health disorder like gambling disorder. The ICD-11 assumes that excessive online gaming can lead to functional/clinical impairments and psychological distress among a minority of individuals. The present study investigated similarities and commonalities between internet gaming disorder (IGD) and gambling disorder among adolescents (N = 366 students, 13–19 years). Participants completed the South Oaks Gambling Screen Revised for Adolescents (SOGS-RA), the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short Form (IGDS9-SF), the Personality Inventory for DSM-5 Brief Form (PID-5-BF), the Reflective Functioning Questionnaire (RFQ-8), the Consideration of Future Consequences Scale (CFC-14), and the Adolescent Dissociative Experiences Scale (A-DES). Regression analyses showed that the significant predictors of (i) gambling severity were being male, high scores on the PID-5-BF Disinhibition and Antagonism domains, and low scores on RFQ-Certainty and CFC-Future subscales, and (ii) gaming severity were being male, high scores on the PID-5-BF Detachment scale and the A-DES, and low scores on the RFQ-Certainty. Risk factors shared by both disorders were male gender and impaired mentalization. Specific interventions on mentalization abilities may be useful in reducing and preventing problematic involvement in both gaming and gambling among adolescents.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank all study participants for their contributions.
Funding sources
This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.
Constraints on publishing
No constraints on publishing were declared by the authors in relation to this manuscript.
Competing interests
Mark Griffiths' university currently receives funding from Norsk Tipping (the gambling operator owned by the Norwegian Government) for gambling-related research. He has also received funding for a number of research projects in the area of gambling education for young people, social responsibility in gambling and gambling treatment from Gamble Aware (formerly the Responsibility in Gambling Trust), a charitable body, which funds its research program based on donations from the gambling industry. He also undertakes consultancy for various gaming companies in the area of social responsibility in gambling.
Preregistration statement
No preregistration was declared by the authors in relation to this manuscript.
Data availability statement
The data that support the findings of this study are available from the corresponding author, MCi, upon reasonable request. The data are not publicly available due to the privacy or ethical restrictions.
Notes
1. The a-priori power analysis was performed with the program G* Power (Erdfelder et al., Citation1996) for the present study. For the ANOVA executed to detect gender differences on the examined variables, the following input parameters were incorporated: effect size = 0.5, α err prob = 0.05, power = 0.95, and we obtained the following output parameters: critical t = 1.65, sample size = 176, actual power = 0.95. For the regression, having inserted these input parameters: effect size f2 = 0.15, α err prob = 0.05, power = 0.95, and number of predictors = 13, we obtained the following output parameters: critical F = 1.78, sample size = 189, actual power = 0.95. The number of participants recruited was larger than that needed and all of these were used in the final analysis.
2. Given that the A-DES contains an item related to gaming but no items related to gambling, the correlation analysis between A-DES, SOGS-RA and IGDS9-BF was conducted by eliminating this item (Item 1). The correlation coefficients obtained were: 0.334 between A-DES and IGDS9-BF and 0.197 between A-DES and SOGS-RA.
Additional information
Notes on contributors
Maria Ciccarelli
Maria Ciccarelli is Researcher of Clinical Psychology.
Marina Cosenza
Marina Cosenza is Full Professor of Clinical Psychology.
Giovanna Nigro
Giovanna Nigro is Full Professor of General Psychology.
Mark Griffiths
Mark Griffiths is Distinguished Professor of Behavioral Addiction.
Francesca D’Olimpio
Francesca D'Olimpio is Full Professor of Psychometrics.