Newest findings on gaming addiction treatment

Abstract

Background: With introduction of new technologies, mainly computers and internet, the lives of societies are being transferred more often to virtual reality. What happens to be one of the greatest achievements of human kind, being able to archive all of accomplishments of the civilizations, connect people around the world and make the living truly globalized, to some may be a curse and an addictive trap. Gaming addiction and internet addiction are one of the new behavioural addictions, collecting more and more victims every year, and gathering more attention of psychiatrists, neurobiologists and public health professionals. Materials and methods: The aim of this study is to review the latest treatment options for gaming addiction. For this purpose, 32 papers from PubMed Medline of period 2007-2017 have been reviewed. Results: Treatment of gaming addiction is still a new topic within modern psychiatry. The latest options of treatment can be differentiated between psychosocial and pharmacotherapy treatment. Psychosocial treatment consists of cognitive behavioral and psycho-educational therapy, aiming to control the harmful stressors and to obtain skills necessary for self-control. For pharmacotherapy the choice depends on the coexisting comorbidities, however the data on the neurobiology of the gaming addiction, as well as diagnostics procedures are still not consistent enough to provide reliable guidelines. Conclusions: Study reveals the growing importance of increased research in field of treatment of gaming addictions, as more guidelines are being provided nowadays as well as number of patients affected will be increasing in the nearest future.