Clinical Practices of Co-occurring Psychiatric and Addictive Disorders

Editorial

20 December 2022

Editorial: Clinical practices for co-occurring psychiatric and addictive disorders

Alessio Picello

and

Giuseppe Ducci

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Editors

Giuseppe Ducci

Mental health Department, ASL Roma 1

Alessio Picello

Azienda Sanitaria Locale Roma 1

Antonio Metastasio

University of Hertfordshire

Impact

Original Research

28 January 2022

Differential Effects of Anxiety on Internet Gaming Disorder: A Large-Scale Cross-Sectional Survey

Xia Huang

, 4 more and

Jia-jun Xu

Background: Internet gaming disorder (IGD) has become a serious public health problem in East Asia, and studies have reported IGD to be significantly associated with anxiety, but no causal relationship between the two has yet been demonstrated. Children are at high risk of developing IGD, however, previous studies have principally focused on the condition in adults and adolescents and reported non-clinical samples. A large-scale survey is needed to research and evaluate IGD and anxiety in children and adolescents to understand the current situation of IGD in children and explore the impact of IGD on anxiety.

Methods: A cross-sectional study using an online questionnaire was conducted between March 1 and July 31, 2021. A total of 10,479 school children and adolescents in the western provinces of China were selected by convenience sampling. A questionnaire was used to collect data anonymously. The questionnaire covered IGD and the Revised Children's Manifest Anxiety Scale (RCMAS). Welch's ANOVA Test and Games-Howell test were used to test for differences in anxiety levels between IGD groups. Poisson regression analysis was used to further investigate the key predictors of IGD.

Results: 3.2% of participants (n = 334) (95% CI: 2.9–3.2%) were classified as at high risk of presenting with IGD, 71.1% (n = 7,454) (95% CI: 70.3–72.0%) were classified as low-risk players, and 25.7% (n = 2,691) (95% CI: 24.9–26.5%) were classified as non-gaming. The average RCMAS score was (7.18 ± 7.534). The high-risk group had a higher total score RCMAS, as well as scoring higher in its three dimensions. Regression analysis using gender, age, and total RCMAS score as independent variables, and risk of IGD as a dependent variable showed that the odds ratio (OR) for gender was 2.864 (95% CI: 2.267–3.618), and the OR for total RCMAS score was 1.101 (95% CI: 1.087–1.114). The OR for age was not statistically significant.

Conclusion: Anxiety was a predictor of IGD, with statistically significant group differences in total anxiety, as well as the dimensions of physiological anxiety, social correlation, and sensitivity. The timely assessment of anxiety in children and adolescents, training social skills, and facilitating effective integration into society could be effective ways of reducing the incidence and impact of IGD.

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6 citations

Levels of the 4 quality of life (QoL) dimensions: physical domain, psychological domain, social relations domain, environment domain. Post-hoc tests for the group differences between EG1, EG2, CG1, and CG2 are shown. Only the significant p values are shown.

Brief Research Report

24 March 2022

Quality of Life in Internet Use Disorder Patients With and Without Comorbid Mental Disorders

Jan Dieris-Hirche

, 5 more and

Stephan Herpertz

3,384 views

8 citations

Original Research

29 October 2021

Circadian Functioning and Quality of Life in Substance Use Disorder Patients With and Without Comorbid Major Depressive Disorder

Iman Hashemzadeh

, 3 more and

Ana Adan

Aim: Although a relationship between circadian disruption and development of several psychiatric disorders, such as major depressive disorder (MDD) and substance use disorder (SUD), has been observed, knowledge on this area is scarce yet. Therefore, this study aims to analyze the circadian functioning and quality of life (QOL) in SUD patients with and without comorbid MDD, two highly prevalent clinical entities with difficult therapeutic management.

Methods: One hundred sixty-three male patients under treatment, 81 with SUD and 82 with SUD comorbid major depressive disorder (SUD + MDD), were evaluated. For the circadian functioning assessment, we calculated Social Jet Lag (SJL) and used the reduced Morningness–Eveningness Questionnaire (rMEQ) and the Pittsburgh Sleep Quality Index (PSQI). QOL was measured using the shortened version of the World Health Organization's Quality of Life Questionnaire (WHOQOL-BREF). We collected sociodemographic and clinical variables to evaluate their possible influence on the circadian functioning. Intergroup differences among the variables were examined by different analyses of covariance (ANCOVA and MANCOVA). The possible relationships of quantitative clinical variables with rMEQ, PSQI, and WHOQOL-BREF were explored using bivariate correlation analysis.

Results: Lower SJL appears in the SUD + MDD group compared with SUD. The intermediate-type was more prevalent in the SUD group, while a higher percentage of morning-type patients was found in the SUD + MDD. Sleep quality (including latency and daytime dysfunction) was worse for SUD + MDD patients than for SUD even after controlling age and age of SUD onset variables. Last, QOL was poorer in patients with SUD + MDD and, for them, psychological health had a negative relationship with SJL and severity of depression.

Conclusions: Our data support and extend previous findings indicating that SUD + MDD is associated with worse clinical characteristics, more sleep problems, and poorer QOL than SUD patients. These results underline the importance of a precise assessment of these measurements in future studies conducted in SUD patients with/without MDD comorbidity that could be considered from a therapeutic point of view.

2,971 views

15 citations