Gaming has increasingly become a part of life in Africa. currently, no data on gaming disorders or their association with mental disorders exist for African countries. This study for the first time investigated (1) the prevalence of insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness, anxiety and depression among African gamers, (2) the association between these conditions and gamer types (i.e., non-problematic, engaged, problematic and addicted) and (3) the predictive power of socioeconomic markers (education, age, income, marital status, employment status) on these conditions. 10,566 people from 2 low-(Rwanda, Gabon), 6 lower-middle (Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Ivory Coast) and 1 upper-middle income countries (South Africa) completed online questionnaires containing validated measures on insomnia, sleepiness, anxiety, depression and gaming addiction. Results showed our sample of gamers (24 ± 2.8 yrs; 88.64% Male), 30% were addicted, 30% were problematic, 8% were engaged and 32% were non-problematic. Gaming significantly contributed to 86.9% of the variance in insomnia, 82.7% of the variance in daytime sleepiness and 82.3% of the variance in anxiety [p < 0.001]. This study establishes the prevalence of gaming, mood and sleep disorders, in a large African sample. Our results corroborate previous studies, reporting problematic and addicted gamers show poorer health outcomes compared with non-problematic gamers. With the popularity of consoles, such as the PlayStation and the X-box, and the possibility to use various applications on smartphones and tablets due to easy access to Wi-Fi and mobile data, gaming has become a part of life in Africa, similarly to Europe and North America. Recently, some reports estimated that African countries such as Nigeria have over 146,866,356 active mobile phone lines, with mobile users interested in available online entertainment content (BBC 2016), which may negatively impact on users' health in some cases 1,2. It was also suggested by Wittek et al. 3 , when assessing prevalence rates and predictors of video game addiction in a multicultural sample including native Norwegians and immigrants, that the geographical region where an individual is born may play an important role in addictive behavior. They reported there were more addicted gamers who originated from African, Asian and central American countries compared with gamers born in Europe and North America. Prevalence of gaming disorders was reported in Europe, Asia and North America 3-9 ; while no data exist for prevalence in African countries as well as their association with sleep and mood disorders.
