WHO Announces New Mental Health Condition

The World Health Organization just announced they will be recognizing gaming addiction as a medical disorder in the upcoming ICD-11. They will also offer available treatment options and official recognition.

This disorder will be included in the 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). There will be notification of this development to governments around the world to implement programs for their health care systems.

Families of people with gaming addictions have made a call for action due to the family breakdown as a result of addiction. A recent case of gaming addiction lead to the hospitalization of a 15-year-old gamer for eight weeks and took off school for a year after losing confidence to leave the house.

The guideline for diagnosis with behavior “of sufficient severity to result in significant impairment in personal, family, social, educational, occupational or other important areas of functioning.” Another aspect of this disorder is that people are expected to have suffered with this for at least a year.

Studies by WHO’s Mental Health and Substance Abuse department reports a study showed that between one and six percent of adolescents may be afflicted by gaming addiction (although not yet diagnoses victims). During a four-year investigation into the impact on health through excessive internet use, they revealed other diagnoses relating to internet use.

During this study WHO considered social media addiction as part of the investigation but decided there was not enough sufficient evidence to justify its classification as a disorder. The Royal College of Psychiatrists welcomed the classification of gaming disorder, as they found that this disorder is afflicting a large youth population.

There are already methods of therapy for rehabilitating those with gaming addictions but is not a common known problem in the health field, offering therapy with little medical treatment. This new development can offer more medical treatment with therapy programs. Check out the video above for more on gaming disorders.