Abstracts of the 2nd International Conference on Behavioral Addictions — March 16–18, 2015, Budapest, Hungary

Abstract

Growing evidence suggests that the use of the Internet can become dysfunctional and cause negative impacts on daily living. Since its appearance in the psychiatric and clinical psychology literatures, Internet addiction has been almost systematically conceptualized within the framework of behavioral (nonchemical) addictions. Accordingly, the various criteria proposed to define an addiction to the Internet (and related screening tools) were transposed from those established for the diagnosis of substance abuse and disordered gambling. In 2013, the APA decided that evidence is too scarce to allow its inclusion as a new condition in the DSM-5. Indeed, the Internet addiction construct is challenged by both theoretical and empirical concerns. In this talk, I will review the existing evidence supporting the view that conceptualizing the Internet-related disorders as "behavioral addiction" is too restrictive and might result in the simplification of heterogeneous and multi-determined problematic behaviors. Theoretical and clinical implications of this position will be discussed. Finally, I will consider the risks associated with the "pathologization" of every day behaviors. Indeed, nowadays, many daily behaviors and leisure activities tend to be considered as new tentative behavioral addictions, which could eventually deserve the credibility of this important (but emergent) field of research. Background: Understanding the enormous cost of all behavioral addictions worldwide to be in the billions it behooves the entire scientific community to provide answers to the addiction dilemma. Based on a concept called Reward Deficiency Syndrome (RDS) which links drugs, food, and other behavioral addictions like gambling into a common genetic rubric, laboratories across the globe have been actively providing neurobiological and clinical data to enhance our knowledge. Coupling genetic diagnosis of risk; monitoring treatment medications and abstinence from such behaviors; administering dopaminergic agonist modalities and measuring outcomes via gene expression should lead to Reward Deficiency Syndrome Solution System (RDSS). Objectives: Firstly, while many organizations such as NIDA, NIAAA, NIH, APA and ASAM are interested in both genetic risk for addiction and pharmacogenetics of Medication Assisted Treatment (MAT) to enhance clinical outcomes, until recently, there were no known genetic panels showing significant predictability to clinical risk and treatment response. To this aim we are reporting the first such association between genetic addiction risk score (GARS RX ) and addiction severity index (ASI) among patients in a multi-center treatment study. Secondly, utilizing a sophisticated urine drug screen known as Comprehensive Analysis of Reported Drugs (CARD™) to monitor compliance to treatment medications and abstinence from addictive behaviors (e.g. drugs/alcohol, etc. that are used in conjunction with behaviors like gambling) provides an important treatment tool showing improvement of clinical outcome. Thirdly incorporation ...

Examine Internet Addiction and Acculturative Stress among International College Students in the United States

“…Acculturative stress, including its subscales such as cultural shock, may be considered as a predictor of IA in our study. Our finding might be regarded as an extension of previous studies in the literature regarding perceived stress that is related to addictive behaviors (Cheng & Hong, 2017;Gil et al, 2015;Sinha & Jastreoboff, 2013). The similarity of the findings may be explained by the prevalence of the sense of insecurity and the stress associated with acculturation in unfamiliar surroundings among international college students.…”

Psychometric evaluation of the Persian Internet Disorder Scale among adolescents

“…Researchers have suggested the appropriateness of applying the IGD criteria to assess Internet addiction (e.g., Pontes & Griffiths, 2017; Rumpf et al., 2015). To the best of the authors’ knowledge, only two instruments [the Internet Addiction Scale and the Internet Disorder Scale (IDS-15)] based on the DSM-5 IGD criteria have been developed to assess Internet addiction (Cho et al., 2014; Pontes & Griffiths, 2017).…”

The Development and Psychometric Properties of the Internet Disorder Scale–Short Form (IDS9-SF)

“…The nomological network is considered an aspect of construct validity of a given phenomenon and was assessed by replicating the structural and causal relationships between IA and age, age of Internet use initiation, and time spent on the Internet weekly in the present study. This decision was informed by several studies (e.g., Pontes & Griffiths, 2015c;Siciliano et al, 2015;Tsitsika et al, 2014;Vink, van Beijsterveldt, Huppertz, Bartels, & Boomsma, 2015) …”