Association of violent video gaming with mental health among male teenagers in Lebanon

The impact of violent video gaming on the mental health of adolescents has been of extreme importance to health care professionals and policy makers for many years. Lebanon is gripped by political and economic events that contribute to the increased prevalence of mental disorders especially among children and adolescents. This study sought to examine the association between violent video gaming and mental health problems including aggression, depression, anxiety, and insomnia among male teenagers in Lebanon. This is a cross-sectional survey study that enrolled a sample of 388 male students from grades 9, 10, 11 and 12 (13-17 years of age). The students were drawn from five Lebanese schools between October and December 2019. The Video Game Questionnaire was used to assess the games use frequencies, the degree of violent content (blood), and the degree of violent images, the Buss and Perry Scale for aggression, the Normative Beliefs about Aggression for the perceptions and beliefs about behaving aggressively, the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 for depression, the Hamilton Anxiety Rating Scale for anxiety and the Lebanese Insomnia Scale for insomnia. A multivariate analysis of covariance (MANCOVA) was carried out after adjusting for age and household crowding index. The results showed that higher video gaming total score was significantly associated with higher anxiety (Beta = 0.039), insomnia (Beta = 0.042), total aggression (Beta = 0.141) and approval of aggression (Beta = 0.061), but not depression (Beta = 0.009). Our findings reveal the association between higher violent VGs exposure and higher approval of aggression, aggression, anxiety and insomnia among male teenagers in Lebanon. Such data can be relied on as a framework for parents, health care providers and teachers to increase awareness and protect our teenagers from the possible negative effect of violent video gaming.