The Effects of Pathological Gaming on Aggressive Behavior

Studies have shown that pathological involvement with computer or video games is related to excessive gaming binges and aggressive behavior. Our aims for this study were to longitudinally examine if pathological gaming leads to increasingly excessive gaming habits, and how pathological gaming may cause an increase in physical aggression. For this purpose, we conducted a two-wave panel study among 851 Dutch adolescents (49% female) of which 540 played games (30% female). Our analyses indicated that higher levels of pathological gaming predicted an increase in time spent playing games 6 months later. Time spent playing violent games specifically, and not just games per se, increased physical aggression. Furthermore, higher levels of pathological gaming, regardless of violent content, predicted an increase in physical aggression among boys. That this effect only applies to boys does not diminish its importance, because adolescent boys are generally the heaviest players of violent games and most susceptible to pathological involvement

Alcohol and cannabis use as risk factors for injury – a case-crossover analysis in a Swiss hospital emergency department

BACKGROUND: There is sufficient and consistent evidence that alcohol use is a causal risk factor for injury. For cannabis use, however, there is conflicting evidence; a detrimental dose-response effect of cannabis use on psychomotor and other relevant skills has been found in experimental laboratory studies, while a protective effect of cannabis use has also been found in epidemiological studies. METHODS: Implementation of a case-crossover design study, with a representative sample of injured patients (N = 486; 332 men; 154 women) from the Emergency Department (ED) of the Lausanne University Hospital, which received treatment for different categories of injuries of varying aetiology. RESULTS: Alcohol use in the six hours prior to injury was associated with a relative risk of 3.00 (C.I.: 1.78, 5.04) compared with no alcohol use, a dose-response relationship also was found. Cannabis use was inversely related to risk of injury (RR: 0.33; C.I.: 0.12, 0.92), also in a dose-response like manner. However, the sample size for people who had used cannabis was small. Simultaneous use of alcohol and cannabis did not show significantly elevated risk. CONCLUSION: The most surprising result of our study was the inverse relationship between cannabis use and injury. Possible explanations and underlying mechanisms, such as use in safer environments or more compensatory behavior among cannabis users, were discussed

How to screen for problematic cannabis use in population surveys. An Evaluation of the Cannabis Use Disorders Identification Test (CUDIT) in a Swiss sample of adolescents and young adults

BACKGROUND/AIMS: Cannabis use is a growing challenge for public health, calling for adequate instruments to identify problematic consumption patterns. The Cannabis Use Disorders Identification Test (CUDIT) is a 10-item questionnaire used for screening cannabis abuse and dependency. The present study evaluated that screening instrument. METHODS: In a representative population sample of 5,025 Swiss adolescents and young adults, 593 current cannabis users replied to the CUDIT. Internal consistency was examined by means of Cronbach's alpha and confirmatory factor analysis. In addition, the CUDIT was compared to accepted concepts of problematic cannabis use (e.g. using cannabis and driving). ROC analyses were used to test the CUDIT's discriminative ability and to determine an appropriate cut-off. RESULTS: Two items ('injuries' and 'hours being stoned') had loadings below 0.5 on the unidimensional construct and correlated lower than 0.4 with the total CUDIT score. All concepts of problematic cannabis use were related to CUDIT scores. An ideal cut-off between six and eight points was found. CONCLUSIONS: Although the CUDIT seems to be a promising instrument to identify problematic cannabis use, there is a need to revise some of its items