Peer-Reviewed Study

Development and Validation of a Nine-Item Short Screening Test for ICD-11 Gaming Disorder (GAMES Test) and Estimation of the Prevalence in the General Young Population

Jul 2021 🇯🇵 Journal of Behavioral Addictions Ages 10–29 PEER-REVIEWED

This 2021 paper in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions, led by Susumu Higuchi, presents the GAMES test — a brief nine-item self-report screening tool built around the World Health Organization's ICD-11 gaming disorder category. Higuchi's team checked the tool against clinical-interview diagnoses among patients already seeking care at Kurihama Medical and Addiction Center, then applied it to a general-population sample of young people ages 10 to 29 to estimate how common gaming-disorder-consistent patterns might be. The screening measure distinguished clinically diagnosed cases from non-cases with high accuracy, and population estimates showed the pattern appearing more often among young males than young females. TechKids Foundation includes this entry as an example of a clinician-built early-identification tool associated with gaming disorder risk in young people, offered as a screening aid rather than a standalone diagnosis.

Sensitivity and specificity of 98% against clinical diagnosis

In validation testing against psychiatrist-administered diagnostic interviews, the nine-item GAMES test correctly classified cases and non-cases with 98% sensitivity and 98% specificity.

Estimated prevalence of 7.6% (males) vs. 2.5% (females) in the general youth sample

Applying the GAMES test to a general-population sample of young people ages 10–29, the study estimated gaming-disorder-consistent patterns in about 7.6% of young males and 2.5% of young females, for a combined estimate near 5.1%.

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CITATION

Higuchi, Susumu, Yoneatsu Osaki, Aya Kinjo, Satoko Mihara, Masaki Maezono, Takashi Kitayuguchi, Takanobu Matsuzaki, Hideki Nakayama, Hans-Jürgen Rumpf, and John B. Saunders. "Development and Validation of a Nine-Item Short Screening Test for ICD-11 Gaming Disorder (GAMES Test) and Estimation of the Prevalence in the General Young Population." Journal of Behavioral Addictions 10, no. 2 (2021): 263–280. https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.2021.00041

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