From the Oxford Internet Institute, University of Oxford, Oxford, United Kingdom; the School of Psychology, Cardiff University, Cardiff, Wales, United Kingdom; the School of Psychology and Clinical Language Sciences, University of Reading, Reading, Berkshire, United Kingdom; and Kochi University of Technology, Kochi, Japan.
Am J Psychiatry. 2017 Mar 1;174(3):230-236. doi: 10.1176/appi.ajp.2016.16020224. Epub 2016 Nov 4.
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.
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.
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.
The evidence linking Internet gaming disorder to game engagement was strong, but links to physical, social, and mental health outcomes were decidedly mixed.
美国精神病学协会（APA）将网络游戏障碍认定为一种新的潜在精神障碍，并认识到目前对于所提出的网络游戏障碍标准的流行率、有效性或跨文化稳健性知之甚少。为了弥补我们在这方面的理解不足，本研究首次使用 APA 指南来估计这种新的潜在精神障碍的时期流行率，检验其建议指标的有效性，评估跨文化和跨性别信度，将其与赌博成瘾和问题游戏的黄金标准研究进行比较，并估计其对生理、社会和心理健康的影响。
四项具有大型国际队列的调查研究采用了开放科学方法，其中确认假设的分析计划在数据收集之前进行了注册。
在玩游戏的人中，超过 2/3 的人没有报告任何网络游戏障碍的症状，研究结果表明，一小部分普通人群（占 0.3%至 1.0%）可能符合网络游戏障碍的急性诊断标准。与赌博障碍的比较表明，基于互联网的游戏可能比赌博的成瘾性要小得多，而且与电子游戏总体上的失调程度相似。
将网络游戏障碍与游戏参与联系起来的证据是强有力的，但与生理、社会和心理健康结果的联系则存在明显的差异。
