Full text

Turn on search term navigation

© Jager et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.

Abstract

Background

In the last few years, excessive internet use and computer gaming have increased dramatically. Salience, mood modification, tolerance, withdrawal symptoms, conflict, and relapse have been defined as diagnostic criteria for internet addiction (IA) and computer addiction (CA) in the scientific community. Despite a growing number of individuals seeking help, there are no specific treatments of established efficacy.

Methods/design

This clinical trial aims to determine the effect of the disorder-specific manualized short-term treatment of IA/CA (STICA). The cognitive behavioural treatment combines individual and group interventions with a total duration of 4 months. Patients will be randomly assigned to STICA treatment or to a wait list control group. Reliable and valid measures of IA/CA and co-morbid mental symptoms (for example social anxiety, depression) will be assessed prior to the beginning, in the middle, at the end, and 6 months after completion of treatment.

Discussion

A treatment of IA/CA will establish efficacy and is desperately needed. As this is the first trial to determine efficacy of a disorder specific treatment, a wait list control group will be implemented. Pros and cons of the design were discussed.

Trial Registration

ClinicalTrials (NCT01434589)

Details

Title
Effects of a manualized short-term treatment of internet and computer game addiction (STICA): study protocol for a randomized controlled trial
Author
Jäger, Susanne 1 ; Müller, Kai W 1 ; Ruckes, Christian 2 ; Wittig, Tobias 2 ; Batra, Anil 3 ; Musalek, Michael 4 ; Mann, Karl 5 ; Wölfling, Klaus 1 ; Beutel, Manfred E 1 

 University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Outpatient Clinic for Behavioural Addictions, Department of Psychosomatic Medicine and Psychotherapy, Mainz, Germany (GRID:grid.410607.4) 
 University Medical Center of the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Interdisciplinary Center for Clinical Trials (IZKS), Mainz, Germany (GRID:grid.410607.4) 
 University Hospital Tübingen, Section Addiction Medicine and Addiction Research, Tübingen, Germany (GRID:grid.411544.1) (ISNI:0000000101968249) 
 Anton-Proksch Institute Wien, Wien, Austria (GRID:grid.411544.1) 
 Central Institute of Mental Health Mannheim, Addiction Medicine, Mannheim, Germany (GRID:grid.413757.3) (ISNI:0000000404772235) 
Pages
43
Publication year
2012
Publication date
Dec 2012
Publisher
BioMed Central
e-ISSN
17456215
Source type
Scholarly Journal
Language of publication
English
ProQuest document ID
2794925201
Copyright
© Jager et al.; licensee BioMed Central Ltd. 2012. This article is published under license to BioMed Central Ltd. This is an Open Access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License ( http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2.0 ), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original work is properly cited. This work is published under http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/2/ (the “License”). Notwithstanding the ProQuest Terms and Conditions, you may use this content in accordance with the terms of the License.