Orsolini Laura, Longo Giulio, Bellagamba Silvia, Kato Takahiro A, Volpe Umberto
Unit of Clinical Psychiatry, Department of Clinical Neurosciences/DIMSC, Polytechnic University of Marche, 60126 Ancona, Italy.
Department of Neuropsychiatry, Graduate School of Medical Sciences, Kyushu University, Fukuoka 812-8582, Japan.
Brain Sci. 2024 Jan 3;14(1):48. doi: 10.3390/brainsci14010048.
A new postmodern depression type, named "Modern-Type Depression" (MTD), is emerging in Western countries. MTD is often underdiagnosed, mainly due to potentially higher comorbidity with technology-based addictions, including Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD). However, the definition of the relationship between MTD and IGD is still controversial, as few data have been published thus far. In particular, there are no data specifically investigating the prevalence of MTD within Italian young subjects with IGD, as well as their mutual association. Hence, within the SWATCH (Social Withdrawal and TeCno-mediated mental Health issues) project, our study aimed to identify the prevalence of MTD in a sample of Italian young adults who play video games by providing a clinical characterization of MTD within a group of IGD individuals (IGD+) versus a group without IGD (IGD-) who play video games. Our cross-sectional case-control study recruited a sample of 543 Italian young video-gaming players (aged 18-35) from the larger SWATCH database, stratified as IGD+ versus IGD-. Subjects were administered the 22-item Tarumi's Modern-Type Depression Trait Scale (TACS-22), the Motives for Online Gaming Questionnaire (MOGQ), and the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale-Short Form (IGDS9-SF). Around 21.7% of the total sample was represented by MTD individuals, while within the IGD sample, around 34% of subjects had MTD. Within the MTD group, significantly higher scores at IGDS-9SF ( < 0.001), MOGQ "Escape from reality" ( < 0.001), "Fantasy" ( < 0.001), and MOGQ total score ( = 0.003) were found compared to MTD-. According to the multivariate regression model, controlled for sex and age, higher scores in the TACS-22 were positively predicted by the total score of IGDS9-SF ( = 0.003), the MOGQ "Escape from Reality" subscale ( = 0.014), and MOGQ "Fantasy" ( = 0.011), and negatively predicted by the MOGQ "Competition" subscale ( = 0.035) [F (4538) = 17.265; < 0.001]. Our findings suggested that MTD displays a strong association with IGD. Video-gaming players who do not have IGD appear to be less prone to MTD; this suggests that further studies could be carried out to specifically investigate whether pathological use of video games could also be determined by the presence of MTD.
一种名为“现代型抑郁症”（MTD）的新型后现代抑郁症类型正在西方国家出现。MTD常常未被充分诊断，主要是因为它与包括网络游戏障碍（IGD）在内的基于技术的成瘾症的共病率可能更高。然而，MTD与IGD之间关系的定义仍存在争议，因为迄今为止发表的数据很少。特别是，尚无数据专门调查意大利患有IGD的年轻受试者中MTD的患病率及其相互关联。因此，在SWATCH（社交退缩与技术介导的心理健康问题）项目中，我们的研究旨在通过对一组患有IGD的个体（IGD +）与一组未患有IGD的玩电子游戏的个体（IGD -）中的MTD进行临床特征描述，来确定意大利年轻成年人电子游戏玩家样本中MTD的患病率。我们的横断面病例对照研究从更大的SWATCH数据库中招募了543名意大利年轻电子游戏玩家（年龄在18 - 35岁），分为IGD +组和IGD -组。对受试者进行了22项Tarumi现代型抑郁特质量表（TACS - 22）、网络游戏动机问卷（MOGQ）和网络游戏障碍量表简表（IGDS9 - SF）的测试。总样本中约21.7%为MTD个体，而在IGD样本中，约34%的受试者患有MTD。在MTD组中，与MTD -组相比，发现IGDS - 9SF得分显著更高（<0.001），MOGQ“逃避现实”得分（<0.001）、“幻想”得分（<0.001）以及MOGQ总分（=0.003）更高。根据多变量回归模型，在控制性别和年龄后，IGDS9 - SF总分（=0.003）、MOGQ“逃避现实”子量表（=0.014）和MOGQ“幻想”得分（=0.011）对TACS - 22中更高得分有正向预测作用，而MOGQ“竞争”子量表得分（=0.035）有负向预测作用[F（4538）=17.265；<0.001]。我们的研究结果表明MTD与IGD之间存在很强的关联。没有IGD的电子游戏玩家似乎患MTD的可能性较小；这表明可以进一步开展研究，专门调查电子游戏的病理性使用是否也可能由MTD的存在所决定。
