RETRACTED ARTICLE: Insomnia, sleepiness, anxiety and depression among different types of gamers in African countries

Abstract

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 study for the first time investigated (1) the prevalence of insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness, anxiety and depression among African gamers, (2) the association between these conditions and gamer types (i.e., non-problematic, engaged, problematic and addicted) and (3) the predictive power of socioeconomic markers (education, age, income, marital status, employment status) on these conditions. 10,566 people from 2 low-(Rwanda, Gabon), 6 lower-middle (Cameroon, Nigeria, Morocco, Tunisia, Senegal, Ivory Coast) and 1 upper-middle income countries (South Africa) completed online questionnaires containing validated measures on insomnia, sleepiness, anxiety, depression and gaming addiction. Results showed our sample of gamers (24 ± 2.8 yrs; 88.64% Male), 30% were addicted, 30% were problematic, 8% were engaged and 32% were non-problematic. Gaming significantly contributed to 86.9% of the variance in insomnia, 82.7% of the variance in daytime sleepiness and 82.3% of the variance in anxiety [p < 0.001]. This study establishes the prevalence of gaming, mood and sleep disorders, in a large African sample. Our results corroborate previous studies, reporting problematic and addicted gamers show poorer health outcomes compared with non-problematic gamers. With the popularity of consoles, such as the PlayStation and the X-box, and the possibility to use various applications on smartphones and tablets due to easy access to Wi-Fi and mobile data, gaming has become a part of life in Africa, similarly to Europe and North America. Recently, some reports estimated that African countries such as Nigeria have over 146,866,356 active mobile phone lines, with mobile users interested in available online entertainment content (BBC 2016), which may negatively impact on users' health in some cases 1,2. It was also suggested by Wittek et al. 3 , when assessing prevalence rates and predictors of video game addiction in a multicultural sample including native Norwegians and immigrants, that the geographical region where an individual is born may play an important role in addictive behavior. They reported there were more addicted gamers who originated from African, Asian and central American countries compared with gamers born in Europe and North America. Prevalence of gaming disorders was reported in Europe, Asia and North America 3-9 ; while no data exist for prevalence in African countries as well as their association with sleep and mood disorders.

Optimal Control Approach of Discrete Mathematical Modeling of the Spread of Gaming Disorder in Morocco and Cost-Effectiveness Analysis

“…It is decreased by c 3 and by the risk factor for transmission from recovered persons to engaged gamers c 1 . week, period from when participant considered himself a gamer, and type of device used for gaming purposes are described with age and sex [7].…”

“…We continue until convergence of successive iterates is achieved. A code is written and compiled in MATLAB; we use the data in Table 1.To obtain results that simulate reality to some extent, we calculated transactions α 1 , α 2 , β 1 , and β 2 based on the statistical results for Morocco included in [7], and we used the Moroccan population census data (see [7,21]) to determine the N 0 , P 0 , E 0 , A 0 , and Λ.…”

“…Funk et al [6] examined correlations between the preference for violent electronic gaming and adolescents' self-perception of emotional behaviours and feelings. In 2020, Etindele Sosso et al [7] investigated the prevalence of insomnia, excessive daytime sleepiness, anxiety, and depression among African gamers and also described epidemics of gaming disorder in the nine African countries, including Morocco, where the prevalence of addiction was described on electronic games, the average number of hours of gaming per week, the period during which the participant considers him/herself to be a gamer, and the type of device used for gaming along with age and gender (see Figure 1).…”

Inconsistencies in a study of the relationship between sleep disorders, mental health, and gaming behaviour in Africa

“…Higher stakes should be accompanied by greater scrutiny as we close gaps in our knowledge. It is in this spirit that we closely read Etindele Sosso et al (2020); in doing so, we discovered a curious range of inconsistencies, which inform our serious concerns about the veracity of the results. It is noteworthy that this work passed peer review and has been cited with these issues going unrecognised (King, Billieux, Carragher, and Delfabbro, 2020).…”

“…This issue raises serious concerns about whether the data collection procedures reported in these studies are accurate, and how the descriptive statistics were generated. Sosso et al (2020) and Table 2, Etindele Sosso & Kuss (2018). Red numbers denote exact matches across the two studies.…”