Practical psychiatry: Taking gaming seriously – a primer for psychiatrists on gamers and gaming culture

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Abstract

Objective

Up to three billion, of the eight billion people in the world, play videogames. Gaming is a significant global sociocultural influence. This primer will aid psychiatrists in understanding sociocultural milieux of gamers, who include patients and their communities.

Method

A rapid narrative review.

Results

Benefits include expression of personality, identity and culture through social aspects of gaming. Improved physical health, neurocognition, self-efficacy and quality of life are associated with gaming in those with certain mental health disorders including schizophrenia. Harms may include in-game discrimination, disordered gaming, as well as encouragement of online gambling. There is no longitudinal association between violent games and youth aggression.

Conclusions

Psychiatrists should enquire about gaming as part of the sociocultural milieux of patients’ lives, and the perceived mental health benefits and harms of gaming.

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Most cited references 31

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Motivations for play in online games.

Tamara N. Yee (2006)

An empirical model of player motivations in online games provides the foundation to understand and assess how players differ from one another and how motivations of play relate to age, gender, usage patterns, and in-game behaviors. In the current study, a factor analytic approach was used to create an empirical model of player motivations. The analysis revealed 10 motivation subcomponents that grouped into three overarching components (achievement, social, and immersion). Relationships between motivations and demographic variables (age, gender, and usage patterns) are also presented.

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Global prevalence of gaming disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis

Matthew WR Stevens, Diana Dorstyn, Paul H Delfabbro … (2020)

Gaming disorder was included in the latest revision of the International Classification of Diseases (11th ed.). Worldwide, prevalence estimates of gaming disorder are considerably heterogeneous and often appear to be exceedingly high. However, few studies have examined the methodological, cultural and/or demographic factors that might explain this phenomenon. This review employed meta-analytic techniques to compute the worldwide-pooled prevalence of gaming disorder and evaluate the potential contributing factors for varied prevalence estimates. Prevalence estimates were extracted from 53 studies conducted between 2009 and 2019, which included 226,247 participants across 17 different countries. Study findings were meta-analyzed using a random-effects model. Subgroup and moderator analyses examined potential sources of heterogeneity, including assessment tool and cut-off, participant age and gender, sample size and type, study region, and year of data collection. The worldwide prevalence of gaming disorder was 3.05% (confidence interval: [2.38, 3.91]); this figure was adjusted to 1.96% [0.19, 17.12] when considering only studies that met more stringent sampling criteria (e.g. stratified random sampling). However, these estimates were associated with significant variability. The choice of screening tool accounted for 77% of the variance, with the Lemmens Internet gaming disorder-9, Gaming Addiction Identification Test and Problematic Videogame Playing scales associated with the highest estimates. Adolescent samples, lower cut-off scores and smaller sample size were significant predictors of higher prevalence. Gaming disorder rates were approximately 2.5:1 in favor of males compared to females. The worldwide prevalence of gaming disorder appears to be comparable to obsessive-compulsive disorder and some substance-related addictions, but lower than compulsive buying and higher than problem gambling. Gaming disorder prevalence rates appear to be inflated by methodological characteristics, particularly measurement and sampling issues.

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When and How Video Games Can Be Good: A Review of the Positive Effects of Video Games on Well-Being

Yemaya Halbrook, Aisling T. O’Donnell, Rachel Msetfi (2019)

Video games are a source of entertainment for a wide population and have varied effects on well-being. The purpose of this article is to comprehensively examine game-play research to identify the factors that contribute to these disparate well-being outcomes and to highlight the potential positive effects. On the basis of existing literature, we argue that the effects of gaming on well-being are moderated by other variables, such as motivations for gaming and video-game characteristics. Specifically, the inclusion of social activity can benefit prosocial behaviors and affect the relationship between violent video games and aggression that some studies have demonstrated. Moreover, the research on the relationship between violent video games and aggression depends greatly on individual and sociocontextual variables outside of game play. The inclusion of physical activity in games can provide an improvement in physical health with high levels of enjoyment, potentially increasing adherence rates. Overall, following our review, we determined that the effects of gaming on well-being are moderated by and depend on the motivation for gaming, outside variables, the presence of violence, social interaction, and physical activity. Thus, we argue that there is potential for an “optimal gaming profile” that can be used in the future for both academic- and industry-related research.

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Author and article information

Journal

Journal ID (nlm-ta): Australas Psychiatry

Journal ID (iso-abbrev): Australas Psychiatry

Journal ID (hwp): spapy

Journal ID (publisher-id): APY

Title: Australasian Psychiatry

Publisher: SAGE Publications (Sage UK: London, England )

ISSN (Print): 1039-8562

ISSN (Electronic): 1440-1665

Publication date (Electronic): 31 October 2023

Publication date (Print): February 2024

Volume: 32

Issue: 1

Pages: 59-62

Affiliations

[1-10398562231211137]Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine, Ringgold 2219, universityThe Australian National University; School of Medicine and Psychology, Canberra Hospital, Canberra, ACT, Australia; universityConsortium of Australian-Academic Psychiatrists for Independent Policy and Research Analysis (CAPIPRA); , Canberra, ACT, Australia

[2-10398562231211137]Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine, Ringgold 2211, universityThe Australian National University; School of Medicine and Psychology, Canberra Hospital, Canberra, ACT, Australia

[3-10398562231211137]universityConsortium of Australian-Academic Psychiatrists for Independent Policy and Research Analysis (CAPIPRA); , Canberra, ACT, Australia; College of Medicine and Public Health, Ringgold 1065, universityFlinders University; , Adelaide, SA, Australia; Department of Psychiatry, Ringgold 2541, universityMonash University; , Clayton, VIC, Australia

[4-10398562231211137]universityConsortium of Australian-Academic Psychiatrists for Independent Policy and Research Analysis (CAPIPRA); , Canberra, ACT, Australia; College of Medicine and Public Health, Ringgold 1065, universityFlinders University; , Adelaide, SA, Australia

Author notes

[*]Jeffrey CL Looi, Academic Unit of Psychiatry and Addiction Medicine, The Australian National University School of Medicine and Psychology, Building 4, Level 2, Canberra Hospital, PO Box 11, Garran, ACT 2605, Australia. Email: jeffrey.looi@ 123456anu.edu.au

Author information

Jeffrey CL Looi https://orcid.org/0000-0003-3351-6911

Tarun Bastiampillai https://orcid.org/0000-0002-6931-2913

Stephen Allison https://orcid.org/0000-0002-9264-5310

Article

Publisher ID: 10.1177_10398562231211137

DOI: 10.1177/10398562231211137

PMC ID: 10809730

PubMed ID: 37907239

SO-VID: a609a383-3d31-499b-a3c1-f1b48a7ab8c2

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This article is distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 License ( https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/) which permits non-commercial use, reproduction and distribution of the work without further permission provided the original work is attributed as specified on the SAGE and Open Access page ( https://us.sagepub.com/en-us/nam/open-access-at-sage).

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Keywords: video gaming,online gaming,benefits,harms,sociocultural milieu

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Keywords: video gaming, online gaming, benefits, harms, sociocultural milieu

Practical psychiatry: Taking gaming seriously – a primer for psychiatrists on gamers and gaming culture

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Multimodal Learning Material

Most cited references 31

Motivations for play in online games.

Global prevalence of gaming disorder: A systematic review and meta-analysis

When and How Video Games Can Be Good: A Review of the Positive Effects of Video Games on Well-Being

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