Abstract
The present study investigated the prevalence, the potential different profiles, and the associated psychological factors of disordered gaming using data from a large-scale epidemiological study (TURBAHAR [Turkey’s Addiction and Mental Health Risk Profile Map Project]) carried out in Turkey in 2018 with 24,494 participants aged 18–81 years. Participants completed a comprehensive survey comprising a demographic questionnaire, Gaming Addiction Risk Questionnaire, Brief Symptom Inventory, Personal Well-Being Index Adult Form, Positive and Negative Affect Schedule, Toronto Alexithymia Scale, and Experiences in Close Relationships-Revised Scale. Latent class analysis showed the existence of eight different game profiles, which differed in relation to the intensity and specific features of the behavior. Results showed that 1.6% of the participants were problematic gamers. Being male, being younger, lower education level, being single, using alcohol and cigarettes, psychiatric distress, positive and negative affect, and anxious adult attachment were positively associated with problematic gaming.
Highlights
The present study investigated the prevalence, the potential different profiles, and the associated psychological factors of disordered gaming using data from a large-scale epidemiological study (TURBAHAR [Turkey’s Addiction and Mental Health Risk Profile Map Project]) carried out in Turkey in 2018 with 24,494 participants aged 18– 81 years
Research into problematic gaming has increased substantially over the past 30 years (Griffiths et al 2012). This increased research led to Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) being included by the American Psychiatric Association (APA) as a tentative disorder in the latest edition of the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM-5; American Psychiatric Association 2013)
exploratory factor analysis (EFA) indicated a unidimensional structure for Gaming Addiction Risk Questionnaire (GARQ) with optimal Kaiser-Meyer-Olkin measure and Barlett’s test of sphericity (0.90, p < .001) values, respectively (Kline 2011)
Summary
The present study investigated the prevalence, the potential different profiles, and the associated psychological factors of disordered gaming using data from a large-scale epidemiological study (TURBAHAR [Turkey’s Addiction and Mental Health Risk Profile Map Project]) carried out in Turkey in 2018 with 24,494 participants aged 18– 81 years. Many scholars from the various fields involved with the study of excessive behaviors appear to support the definition of addictions based on the component model of behavioral addiction, which despite results showing different diagnostic weightings for each of the criteria (Gomez et al 2019), have informed the basis for the ongoing dialogue in the broader field (Chen et al 2020; Gearhardt et al 2016; Guedes et al 2016; Lehenbauer-Baum and Fohringer 2015) This may be viewed as significant in terms of a distinct conceptual definition of behavioral addictions (including excessive gaming as the point of interest of the present study), which is in contrast with the contested simplistic reformulation of behavioral addictions criteria based on substance abuse and/or gambling addiction disorders (Bean et al 2017). This appears important for two compelling reasons: (i) formal diagnostic definitions of gaming disorder have inspired different instruments for the same behavior (which inevitably compromise comparability of findings in relation to disordered gaming behaviors (Hu et al 2019; Pontes et al 2019a, b; Stavropoulos et al 2019b), and (ii) topic-exclusive definitions/assessments of disordered gaming may not enable its examination in relation to other presenting forms of behavioral addictions (Granero et al 2016; Robbins and Clark 2015)
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