P01-203 - Presentation of a Specialized Outpatient Unit for Internet and PC Addiction -first Year of Operations, Results, Recommendations for the Future

Abstract

Methods: We present data from the first 40 adolescents who attended our service. Demographics and PC / Internet usage statistics are presented along with final diagnosis and treatment where it was deemed appropriate, both for Internet addiction disorder but also any co-morbid psychiatric disorder. We describe the diagnostic tests that are employed and their appropriateness for this goal and the therapeutic methods including psychotherapy (a sixteen session CBT protocol) and pharmacotherapy. Recommendations for effectively setting up similar services are given. Results: All cases involved teenage boys (mean age 15 yrs) who abused the Internet primarily to play on-line games. In all cases it was the parents who initiated contact with our Unit. In 75% of the cases the primary concern was addiction to the Internet per se while in 25% of the cases it was the drop in school achievement that prompted the parents to seek a possible explanation in excessive Internet use. Conclusions: During the first year of operations the Unit has treated with success a variety of cases of Internet addiction disorder and made an effort to alert the public to the new phenomenon. A need for similar services is becoming evident throughout Europe as they have already proliferated in Asia.

Is Cognitive Behavioral Therapy an Intervention for Possible Internet Addiction Disorder?

“…When the effect of CBT on IAD was analyzed on the basis of geographical location, we observed that seven of these studies were carried out in China [23,25,45,76,77,78,79], two in Germany [70,33], two in Greece [62,63], three in USA [43,74], one in Korea [39], and one in Netherlands [65]. No work was retrieved from Australia, New Zealand, Africa or South America, possibly may be due to that different methods are being carried out in these regions for the treatment of IAD.…”

“…Whereas one study was a survey research design that screened clients using Internet Addiction Test [74], three studies were case studies in which one focused on a single female college student [27], another was done on a teenage boy [43], and the third one on two male teenagers [63]. Similarly, one paper was of a descriptive study on IAD patients [62], one pilot trial [70] and one thematic analysis [65] which aims to identify themes within qualitative data.…”

“…In another seven studies [25,33,39,43,62,63,70] the subjects were IAD adolescents who were also diagnosed with other comorbid disorders such as depression and anxiety [25,33,39,43,62,63,70]. One study [27] was focused on an Internet addicted eighteen-year-old college student and another used clients from online-help website of the Center for Online Addiction [65].…”

“…Another study reported a reduction in computer usage time from sixteen hours per day to four hours per day when CBT is combined with 30 mg/day fluoxetine [62]. It is suggested by researchers that CBT in combination with medicine may be more effective for the treatment of IAD for on-line game addiction, particularly in reducing severity of online game play and anxiety, as well as in improving life satisfaction [39].…”

“…From the literature analysis we observed that CBT is the most effective treatment for IAD [23,27,39,62,65]. All the sixteen papers we reviewed were from six different countries.…”