Recovery from gaming addiction: A thematic synthesis

Abstract

In recent years the field of gaming addiction has experienced an upsurge in empirical studies on various treatment approaches. Despite the advances in our understanding of how gaming addiction can be treated, the wider concept of recovery continues to be under-researched. The purpose of this review was to explore how individuals addicted to video games experience the process of recovery. Seven databases were systematically searched for qualitative studies. Eight studies representing the views of 225 participants were included in the review. Study findings were exported into NVivo software and analysed using Thematic Synthesis. Six themes were constructed: “developing awareness”, “deciding to change”, “the process of quitting”, “the challenges of quitting”, “recovery never stops” and “treatment for gaming addiction”. Except for the last, themes represent processes that most participants had gone through during recovery, though significant variation was found in how each process was experienced. In addition to overcoming addiction symptoms, recovery involved management of concomitant problems and various negative consequences of excessive gaming. Regarding practice implications, current findings suggest that treatment programs should adopt a multidimensional approach, providing evidence-based treatments, help for co-occurring problems, as well as pre- and post-treatment support to accommodate individuals at different stages of recovery. Further research is needed to expand our understanding of recovery, for instance, the impact of gender differences or how recovery experiences change based on different recovery goals (i.e., abstinence or reduced play time).