Exploratory study of mental health among gamers

Gaming has increasingly become a part of life in Africa. Currently, no data on gaming disorders or their association with mental disorders exist for African countries. This exploratory study investigates (1) the prevalence of insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness, anxiety and depression among African gamers based in Gabon and Tunisia and (2) the association between these conditions and gamer types (i.e., non-problematic, engaged, problematic and addicted). The questionnaire could only be completed once by participants with the same email address, and duplicates and incomplete forms were discarded. Responses were collected in multiple sites based in nine African countries between November 2015 and June 2017 (Rwanda, Gabon, Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Ivory Coast and South Africa). Because of local restrictions related to the expiration of some ethical certificates, this dataset currently provides aggregate data from Gabon and Tunisia.

Data contained aggregate information describing epidemiology of self-reported measures of insomnia (with the Insomnia Severity Index), excessive daytime sleepiness (with Epworth Sleepiness Scale), anxiety (with Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale-A), depression (Hospital and Anxiety Depression Scale-D) and gaming disorder (with game addiction scale short form) between gamers in Tunisia and Gabon.
The participants who formed this convenience sample were contacted by email. The online questionnaire included a consent form on the second page, following a description of the study in French and English. Consent was required to participate in this project. The average time to answer all questions was 20 minutes. Data available are as follow: mean hours of gaming per week, period from when the participant considered him or herself a gamer, type of device used for gaming purposes, age, sex, and category of gamers.

The present research is a pilot investigation which documents sleep disorders, anxiety and depression among an African sample with a focus on gamers. It should be replicated with the general population with a longitudinal cohort study to understand the global picture of gaming disorder. Similarly, more attention should be brought to the sleep health of African populations. More research on gaming addiction needs to be performed in low- and middle-income countries where little is known about internet gaming disorder.

游戏在非洲逐渐成为生活的一部分。目前，非洲国家尚未存在关于游戏成瘾或其与精神疾病之间关联的数据。本项探索性研究旨在探讨以下问题：（1）基于加蓬和突尼斯的非洲游戏玩家的失眠、过度日间嗜睡、焦虑和抑郁的普遍性；（2）这些状况与游戏玩家类型（即非问题型、参与型、问题型和成瘾型）之间的关联。问卷只能由同一电子邮件地址的参与者填写一次，重复和未完成的问卷将被丢弃。数据收集于2015年11月至2017年6月期间的九个非洲国家（卢旺达、加蓬、喀麦隆、尼日利亚、摩洛哥、突尼斯、塞内加尔、科特迪瓦和南非）的多个地点。（由于与某些伦理证书到期相关的当地限制，该数据集目前仅提供加蓬和突尼斯的汇总数据。}

数据包含描述突尼斯和加蓬游戏玩家自报失眠（使用失眠严重程度指数）、过度日间嗜睡（使用爱泼沃斯嗜睡量表）、焦虑（使用医院焦虑和抑郁量表-A）、抑郁（医院和焦虑抑郁量表-D）以及游戏成瘾（使用游戏成瘾量表简表）流行病学信息的汇总信息。

构成此便利样本的参与者通过电子邮件联系。在线问卷的第二页包含一份同意书，随后是研究描述的法文和英文版本。参与该项目需要同意。回答所有问题的平均时间为20分钟。可用的数据包括每周平均游戏时间、参与者认为自己是游戏玩家的起始时间、用于游戏目的的设备类型、年龄、性别和游戏玩家类别。

当前研究是一项试点调查，记录了非洲样本中的睡眠障碍、焦虑和抑郁，重点关注游戏玩家。应通过纵向队列研究对该总体人群进行复制，以了解全球游戏成瘾的全面图景。同样，应更多地关注非洲人群的睡眠健康。需要在关于互联网游戏障碍知之甚少的低收入和中等收入国家进行更多关于游戏成瘾的研究。