Including gaming disorder in the ICD-11: The need to do so from a clinical and public health perspective : Commentary on: A weak scientific basis for gaming disorder: Let us err on the side of caution (van Rooij et al., 2018)

Rumpf, Hans-Jürgen and Achab, Sophia and Billieux, Joël and Bowden-Jones, Henrietta and Carragher, Natacha and Demetrovics, Zsolt and Higuchi, Susumu and King, Daniel L. and Mann, Karl and Potenza, Marc and Saunders, John B. and Abbott, Max and Ambekar, Atul and Aricak, Osman Tolga and Assanangkornchai, Sawitri and Bahar, Norharlina and Borges, Guilherme and Brand, Matthias and Chan, Elda Mei-Lo and Chung, Thomas and Derevensky, Jeff and Kashef, Ahmad El and Farrell, Michael and Fineberg, Naomi A. and Gandin, Claudia and Gentile, Douglas A. and Griffiths, Mark D. and Goudriaan, Anna E. and Grall-Bronnec, Marie and Hao, Wei and Hodgins, David C. and Ip, Patrick and Király, Orsolya and Lee, Hae Kook and Kuss, Daria and Lemmens, Jeroen S. and Long, Jiang and Lopez-Fernandez, Olatz and Mihara, Satoko and Petry, Nancy M. and Pontes, Halley M. and Rahimi-Movaghar, Afarin and Rehbein, Florian and Rehm, Jürgen and Scafato, Emanuele and Sharma, Manoi and Spritzer, Daniel and Stein, Dan J. and Tam, Philip and Weinstein, Aviv and Wittchen, Hans-Ulrich and Wölfling, Klaus and Zullino, Daniele and Poznyak, Vladimir (2018) Including gaming disorder in the ICD-11: The need to do so from a clinical and public health perspective : Commentary on: A weak scientific basis for gaming disorder: Let us err on the side of caution (van Rooij et al., 2018). Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 7 (3). pp. 556-561. ISSN 2062-5871

Preview

Text 2006.7.2018.59.pdf Download (99kB) | Preview

Abstract

The proposed introduction of gaming disorder (GD) in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) has led to a lively debate over the past year. Besides the broad support for the decision in the academic press, a recent publication by van Rooij et al. (2018) repeated the criticism raised against the inclusion of GD in ICD-11 by Aarseth et al. (2017). We argue that this group of researchers fails to recognize the clinical and public health considerations, which support the WHO perspective. It is important to recognize a range of biases that may influence this debate; in particular, the gaming industry may wish to diminish its responsibility by claiming that GD is not a public health problem, a position which maybe supported by arguments from scholars based in media psychology, computer games research, communication science, and related disciplines. However, just as with any other disease or disorder in the ICD-11, the decision whether or not to include GD is based on clinical evidence and public health needs. Therefore, we reiterate our conclusion that including GD reflects the essence of the ICD and will facilitate treatment and prevention for those who need it.

Actions (login required)

Edit Item