Gaming addiction is now a mental health condition

NEWDELHI: “Gaming disorder” has been identified as “addictive” by World Health Organisation’s 11th International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11), released on Monday. The ICD is an internationally accepted coding system to classify injuries, diseases and causes of death.

In 2013, the American Psychiatric Association’s Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders (DSM – 5) included it as a “condition for further study”.

ICD-11 defines gaming disorder as a pattern of gaming behaviour — digital or video games — characterised by impaired control over gaming, increasing priority given to gaming over other activities, and continuing gaming despite negative consequences. For the disorder to be diagnosed, the pattern must be of sufficient severity that it impairs personal, familial, social, educational, occupational functioning and would have been evident for at least 12 months. “The benefit of gaming disorder, or for that matter any disease, getting recognised is more visible in countries like the US, where people will be able to receive insurance claims for said disease,” said Dr Rajesh Sagar, professor, department of psychiatry, AIIMS.

“But in the Indian context, defining a disorder and how to diagnose it will lead to more and more doctors recognising and treating the condition,” he adds. Currently, there are no numbers to indicate how in India might be suffering from the disorder.

Internationally, there have been reservations from a certain section of mental health professionals who feel this categorisation may be premature. Research indicates gaming disorder is often a secondary diagnosis with depression and anxiety as the primary diagnoses. In these cases, treating anxiety and depression has had an impact on the patient’s gaming disorder.

“There are certain technical criteria that must be fulfilled for something to qualify as a disorder. However, the bigger problem is that one must not medicalise everything. Nowadays, most of us would perhaps be on the internet – mails, Whatsapp, watching series – one thing or the other. It is not a good idea to label everyone because it might have negative effects on the psyche too,” said Dr Sagar. However, internet addiction has not been included in the list. The new classification has included a chapter on traditional medicine, which codifies diagnoses according to traditional medical practices in China, Japan and Korea. ICD-11 has also carved out a separate section for sexual health that will include gender incongruence, which used to be listed as a mental health condition under the previous ICD.