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Arcelus et al. (2017) Video gaming and gaming addiction in transgender people An exploratory study.pdf (125.39 kB)

Video gaming and gaming addiction in transgender people: an exploratory study

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posted on 2017-03-15, 12:14 authored by Jon Arcelus, Walter P. Bouman, Beth Jones, Christina Richards, Susana Jimenez-Murcia, Mark D. Griffiths
Background There is anecdotal clinical evidence that transgender people use the online world – such as forums and online video gaming – for the purpose of experiencing their gender identity in a safe, non-threatening, non-alienating, non-stigmatizing, and non-critical environment. Aims To describe gaming behavior, degree of problematic gaming behavior and associated factors with problematic gaming in a comparatively large group of transgender people accessing transgender health services. Methods Every individual referred to a national transgender health service in the United Kingdom during a 12-month period was invited to complete a series of questionnaires to measure gaming behavior, interpersonal functioning, severity of autistic features, and anxiety and depressive symptoms. Results A total of 245 people agreed to participate in the study with 154 (62.9%) describing themselves as current gamers. Gaming behavior in the transgender population attending transgender health services was prevalent, but less than 1% of them presented with clinical scores for Internet Gaming Disorder, with no differences according to gender. Problematic gaming behavior was associated with general interpersonal problems, depression, and young age. Discussion and conclusions Transgender people who engage in problematic gaming behavior are younger, and present with high interpersonal problems, and depression, which can affect a successful transition. In view of the high levels of gaming activity in this population games that are designed to address these psychological problems may be well received by transgender people.

History

School

  • Sport, Exercise and Health Sciences

Published in

Journal of Behavioral Addictions

Citation

ARCELUS, J. ... et al, 2017. Video gaming and gaming addiction in transgender people: an exploratory study. Journal of Behavioral Addictions, 6 (1), pp. 21-29.

Publisher

© The Authors. Published by Akademiai Kiado.

Version

  • VoR (Version of Record)

Publisher statement

This work is made available according to the conditions of the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported (CC BY 3.0) licence. Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/ by/3.0/

Publication date

2017

Notes

This is an Open Access Article. It is published by Akademiai Kiado under the Creative Commons Attribution 3.0 Unported Licence (CC BY). Full details of this licence are available at: http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/3.0/

ISSN

2062-5871

eISSN

2063-5303

Language

  • en

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