AUTHOR=André Frida , Kapetanovic Sabina , Einarsson Isak , Trebbin Harvard Sunna , Franzén Leonard , Möttus Annika , Håkansson Anders , Claesdotter-Knutsson Emma 

TITLE=Relapse prevention therapy for internet gaming disorder in Swedish child and adolescent psychiatric clinics: a randomized controlled trial

JOURNAL=Frontiers in Psychiatry

VOLUME=14

YEAR=2023

URL=https://www.frontiersin.org/journals/psychiatry/articles/10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1256413

DOI=10.3389/fpsyt.2023.1256413

ISSN=1664-0640

ABSTRACT=<sec id="sec1"><title>Objectives</title><p>To evaluate the effectiveness of relapse prevention (RP) as a treatment for internet gaming disorder (IGD).</p></sec><sec id="sec2"><title>Design</title><p>Randomized controlled trial.</p></sec><sec id="sec3"><title>Setting</title><p>Three child and adolescent psychiatry (CAP) units in Region Skåne, Sweden.</p></sec><sec id="sec4"><title>Participants</title><p>Children aged 13–18 years, coming for their first visit to CAP during 2022, were screened for gaming behavior. Those who met the proposed DSM-5 criteria for IGD were offered participation in the trial, if they had the capacity to provide written informed consent and if they spoke Swedish. A total of 111 CAP patients agreed to participate. Out of those, 11 patients were excluded due to incorrect inclusion such as young age (<italic>n</italic> = 1), or due to the absence of responses to follow-up measures (<italic>n</italic> = 9). After exclusion, 102 participants remained (intervention = 47, control = 55).</p></sec><sec id="sec5"><title>Interventions</title><p>The intervention, RP, is based on cognitive behavioral treatment (CBT) and was provided individually, comprising of five to seven 45-min sessions over a period of 5 to 7 weeks versus treatment as usual.</p></sec><sec id="sec6"><title>Outcome measures</title><p>Participants were assessed with Game Addiction Scale for Adolescents pre-treatment (GASA) (baseline), post-treatment (treatment group only), and 3 months after baseline (follow-up).</p></sec><sec id="sec7"><title>Results</title><p>The repeated measures ANOVA showed a significant interaction effect between treatment and time. Both the control group and treatment group lowered their mean GASA score from baseline to follow-up significantly, but the improvement was greater in the treatment group (mean difference in control group −5.1, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001, 95% CI = − 3.390 to −6.755, mean difference in treatment group −9.9, <italic>p</italic> &lt; 0.001, 95% CI = −11.746 to −8.105).</p></sec><sec id="sec8"><title>Conclusion</title><p>RP was found to be superior to treatment as usual in terms of reduction of IGD symptoms. Future research should address which aspects within a given treatment are effective, who benefits from treatment, in what aspects, and why.</p></sec><sec id="sec143"><title>Trial registration number</title><p><ext-link xlink:href="http://ClinicalTrials.gov" ext-link-type="uri" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">ClinicalTrials.gov</ext-link>, NCT05506384 <ext-link xlink:href="https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05506384" ext-link-type="uri" xmlns:xlink="http://www.w3.org/1999/xlink">https://clinicaltrials.gov/ct2/show/NCT05506384</ext-link>.</p></sec>