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. 2020 Feb 4:11:100261.
doi: 10.1016/j.abrep.2020.100261. eCollection 2020 Jun.

Gaming addiction and perceived stress among Saudi adolescents

Ahmad Mamoun Rajab  1 , Mohamed Saddik Zaghloul  1 , Saed Enabi  1 , Tawfik Mamoun Rajab  1 , Abdullah Murhaf Al-Khani  1 , Abdulrahman Basalah  1 , Sara Wafik Alchalati  1 , Joud Enabi  2 , Saadi Aljundi  1 , Syed Muhammad Baqui Billah  1 , Juliann Saquib  1 , AbdulRahman AlMazrou  1 , Nazmus Saquib  1
Affiliations

Gaming addiction and perceived stress among Saudi adolescents

Ahmad Mamoun Rajab et al. Addict Behav Rep. .

Abstract

Introduction: Adolescents (age: 10-19 years) make up 15% of the Saudi population and have easy access to electronic gadgets and the Internet, yet data on gaming addiction among adolescents are negligible. We aimed to determine the prevalence of gaming addiction and its association with stress among Saudi school students.

Methods: In this cross-sectional survey, 2675 school students (grades 7-12) from 40 randomly selected schools in four main cities of Al-Qassim province in Saudi Arabia participated. The questionnaire inquired about demography, lifestyle, gaming addiction (7-item Game Addiction Scale), and stress (10-item Perceived Stress Scale). Multinomial logistic regression assessed the association between gaming addiction (yes, no) and stress (high, moderate, low).

Results: Participants' mean age was 16.1 (SD = 1.6) years; 50% were female; 64% reported >3 h of daily screen time; 5% were addicted to gaming; 11.4% had high-level stress. Addiction to gaming was strongly associated with stress in the adjusted analysis (moderate OR = 6.7, 95% CI = 2.9-15.5; high OR = 11.9, 95% CI = 4.7-30.1). Additionally, those who were older, female, had poor grades, unhealthy dietary habits, an inactive lifestyle, and smoked were more likely to experience high stress.

Conclusions: Gaming addiction is strongly associated with stress among Saudi adolescents.

Keywords: APA, American Psychiatric Association; Adolescents; DASS, Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale; DSM-V, Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders, 5th ed.; GAS, Game Addiction Scale; Gaming addiction; IGD, Internet gaming disorder; PSS, Perceived Stress Scale; Perceived stress; Saudi Arabia; WHO, World Health Organization.

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Conflict of interest statement

The authors declare that they have no known competing financial interests or personal relationships that could have appeared to influence the work reported in this paper.

Figures

Fig. 1
Fig. 1
The bidirectional cyclical conceptual model describing the association between GA and stress in our study.
See this image and copyright information in PMC

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