Update: On January 5th, 2018, World Health Organisation (WHO) spokesman Tarik Jasarevic issued a statement in Jeneva saying that the WHO does intend to go forward with the classification of Gaming Disorder despite lacking a strong, epidemiological research base. I will be writing more about this statement in an upcoming article. For now, this article serves as a breakdown of the irresponsible nature of the media on reporting on mental health diagnostics prior to an official statement. This article was written on January 2nd, 2018 and reflects my frustration at the media at that time.

For the past fortnight, media outlets such as the BBC have been writing articles on how Gaming Disorder is now a recognised mental health disorder. These articles are untrue, under-researched and inaccurate, and I will tell you exactly how.

Context

To elaborate, ‘Gaming Disorder’ refers to the proposed addition to the ‘Disorders due to addictive behaviours’ category of the ICD-11 diagnostic manual by the World Health Organisation. This manual is unreleased and still in the beta phase.

Gaming Disorder first came to my attention in January 2017 after breaking down a research paper testing the validity of similar diagnostic criteria. I spent a number of weeks emailing and reaching out to journalists with this news, but none of them would bite. I would then take to Twitter to try to raise awareness of the diagnosis, but still nothing major.

In December 2017, articles started being published on how Gaming Disorder ‘is now’ a recognised mental health diagnosis. I have spent the past couple of months keeping up to date with Gaming Disorder research; when a research paper with ‘Gaming Disorder’ as a key phrase is published, I receive an email alert. I thought that I had missed some major update on the future of the Gaming Disorder classification. I scrambled to do more research on what I thought my email alerts had failed me on. I had to make sense of why so many media outlets were now confirming that Gaming Disorder is going to be firmly recognised.

Long story short, I cannot make sense of it.

The Truth

Note that when I raised awareness of Gaming Disorder, I used the phrase ‘could be classified’. This was to recognise that the ICD-11 was still in beta phase, nothing was officially recognised yet and more research was needed on the diagnostic criteria. My first instinct when reading the wave of Gaming Disorder articles was that the World Health Organisation announced that it would be in the final version of the ICD-11.

This is not the case. The Gaming Disorder classification still comes with the major caveat that it is not an official diagnosis, is not approved by the World Health Organisation and cannot be diagnosed.

My next instinct was to figure out whether the World Health Organisation stated in December (the month the articles started appearing) when the ICD-11 would be officially released.

They have not. When searching ‘ICD-11 release date’ from the past month, all I can see is articles related to Gaming Disorder.

I then decided to do further research to determine whether a firm release date for the ICD-11 had been established. According to this page on the ICD-11 beta version (which again states that the beta is not final), the World Health Organisation aims to release the final version in June 2018. This page was last edited on October 31st, 2017, several months before the appearance of the articles.

However, this ‘release date’ is incredibly optimistic. According to this timeline by the World Health Organisation, the final version of the ICD-11 is going to be presented to the World Health Assembly in May 2018 before being published in June 2018. That is an incredibly short period of time to evaluate and edit an entire diagnostic manual of physical and mental health disorders.

This time frame gets even more ridiculous when you look at how tumultuous the ICD-11 process has been. The ICD-11 is currently behind schedule for publication, with an original release date of 2012, then 2015, then 2017, then 2018. A recent newsletter by the World Health Organisation in October 2017 suggests that there is still a lot to do and only makes reference to a ‘2018’ publication date, not June 2018.

Although it is clear that the progress to date represents a huge amount of effort by a large number of experts, both within and outside of WHO, it is also clear that there is significant work still to be done in advance of a rapidly approaching deadline for completion. – Dr John Grove (2017)

Furthermore, a hypothetical publication date of June 2018 does not mean that clinicians can immediately begin using ICD classifications. Each country has to make a decision on what classification systems to use and when to transition to these classification systems. For example, despite the ICD-10’s release date of 1992, America did not transition to ICD-10 codes from ICD-9 codes until October 1st, 2015.

(Sec. 212) Delays until October 1, 2015, the transition from International Statistical Classification of Diseases (ICD)-9 to ICD-10.

Why Misreporting is Dangerous

The media’s misreporting on Gaming Disorder is dangerous because it is fatalistic. It is telling people that Gaming Disorder is now 100% a mental health disorder and there is nothing that can be done until development on a new classification system begins in several years time. This is a great disservice to researchers who are investigating the validity of the proposed classification system to ensure that it is correct, true and will help people. I will be publishing an article later this month that details current research efforts into Gaming Disorder, but I could not hold my tongue on the media’s misreporting any longer.

Summary

‘Gaming Disorder’ is not a recognised mental health disorder.

a recognised mental health disorder. You cannot yet be diagnosed with Gaming Disorder.

It may be a while before we know the fate of Gaming Disorder as the diagnostic manual is behind schedule, has a lot of work to do and has set ambitious deadlines.

I have no idea why the media has started (incorrectly) reporting on Gaming Disorder as nothing has changed since I emailed a number of outlets with correct information on January 2017.

Thank you very much for reading and please have a nice day.

Note

I am the author of an ongoing series titled ‘The Psychology of Video Games‘, a series which aims to bridge the gap between gaming and academia. I do not profit from this series and all work will remain free forever, but if you like the idea of keeping me caffeinated then I would very much appreciate it!