Inclusion of gaming disorder in the diagnostic classifications and promotion of public health response

There are ongoing controversies regarding the upcoming ICD-11 concept of gaming disorder. Recently, Aarseth et al. have put this diagnostic entity into scrutiny. Although we, a group of Iranian researchers and clinicians, acknowledge some of Aarseth et al.’s concerns, believe that the inclusion of gaming disorder in the upcoming ICD-11 would facilitate necessary steps to raise public awareness, enhance development of proper diagnostic approaches and treatment interventions, and improve health and non-health policies

Designing and Evaluating the Validity and Reliability of the Persian Gambling Disorder Screening Questionnaire

Background: Gambling disorder (GD) and substance use disorder (SUD) have mutual impact and each couldaggravate the effects of the other. This is the first study on GD among Iranian substance users to develop andvalidate a GD Screening Questionnaire-Persian (GDSQ-P).Methods: Iranian male adults (n = 503) with SUDs were recruited via clustered sampling. Problem gamblingscreening instruments and Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders-5th Edition (DSM-5)criteria for GD were used to develop the tool which was sequentially assessed for face validity, contentvalidity index (CVI), content validity ratio (CVR), and reliability (Kuder-Richardson coefficient). To establishconstruct validity, interviews based on DSM-5 as a gold standard method were used. A receiver operatingcharacteristic (ROC) curve was conducted to determine sensitivity and specificity.Findings: After removing items with low CVI values, 27 final items remained in GDSQ-P with impact scoregreater than 1.5. Card games (33.8%), dice gambling methods (26.6%), betting on sports teams and players(24.1%), and betting on horseback, rooster, pigeon, dog, or other animals (16.7%) were common gamblingmethods among participants. Overall Kuder-Richardson coefficient was 0.95. Cut-off threshold for GDSQ-Pwas calculated as 4.5 with 98.9% sensitivity and 98.3% specificity. The interviewers confirmed GD forparticipants based on DSM-5 as the gold standard. The prevalence of GD among participants was 17.9%based on GDSQ-P and 19.1% based on DSM-5 criteria.Conclusion: GDSQ-P is a valid and reliable tool to screen for GD in SUD treatment centers and probably inthe general population

Ambiguities in existing Iranian national policies addressing excessive gaming : Commentary on: Policy responses to problematic video game use: A systematic review of current measures and future possibilities (Király et al., 2018)

Considering the scarcity of available science and controversies around effective policies addressing gaming disorder and its health-related consequences, Király et al. have conducted a systematic review on current evidence regarding this issue. We, a group of researchers in this field, would like to express our perspective from Iran. With rapid growth of gaming, Iran seems to be facing some specific policy issues and challenges, which are going to be reviewed in this short commentary