Why do adults seek treatment for gaming (disorder)? A qualitative study

Abstract

BACKGROUND AND AIMS. Despite gaming disorder now being diagnosable by the ICD-11 as a new disorder due to addictive behaviors, little is known about the concrete reasons for which people seek treatment for their videogame play. As the current literature is mainly based on children and adolescents, there is a strong need for better understanding adult treatment-seekers’ in particular. METHODS. This preregistered study responds to the gap in research by qualitatively investigating the reasons for treatment-seeking with 110 participants who had sought help for their videogame play from a Finnish treatment program. We applied template analysis to the open-ended data, which consist of the participants’ personal accounts regarding their problems. Additionally, we report the game titles that the participants had problems with, as well as Internet Gaming Disorder Test 10 (IGDT-10) scores, which were measured from 89 participants. RESULTS. The template analysis suggested five themes, which cover the main reasons for treatment- seeking: social reasons, existential reasons, practical reasons, self-perceived addiction, and wish for support. Many of these themes overlap with the ICD-11 description of gaming disorder, but several issues, such as existential reasons, are not part of the current diagnosis. The average IGDT- 10 score among participants was 3.86 (SD=2.55) and 37 (42%) individuals met the disorder cutoff. Numerous videogames with different designs were mentioned as sources of problems, of which 26 were mentioned more than once.CONCLUSIONS. The study indicates that adults seek treatment for many kinds of games and gaming- related problems, including but not limited to those, which are described part of the ICD-11 gaming disorder diagnoses. We recommend both researchers and practitioners to implement an expanded perspective on gaming behaviors, acknowledging that adults may seek treatment for diverse gaming-related problems, some of which not necessarily relevant to gaming disorder.

DiGRA 2023 Panel: Gaming Disorder Around the World: Overview of Current Situation in 19 Countries

“…Ko et al 2020), nor do these tools necessarily measure the same construct . Finally, not all people who seek help because of their gaming habits do so for the same reason, nor do they all fit the diagnostic criteria of ICD-11 (Karhulahti, Nuutinen & Lukka, 2022).…”