Adolescents with Internet Gaming Disorder are more likely to have Lower Score of Cognitive Function: A Cross-sectional Study among Junior High School Students in Yogyakarta, Indonesia

BACKGROUND: Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) has emerged as a rapidly rising public health problem mostly affecting children and adolescent worldwide, as a result of massive growth of technology and internet usage in recent years. Adolescents are the most vulnerable age group to problematic internet gaming use due to lack of cognitive control. AIM: This study aims to investigate the association between IGD and cognitive function among junior high school- students in Indonesia. METHODS: The subjects of this cross-sectional study were students at two randomly selected junior high schools in Yogyakarta, Indonesia. The Game Addiction Scale-7 Indonesian version and the Modified Mini Mental State Examination for Children-Indonesian version were used to assess IGD and cognitive function, respectively. Multivariate analysis with linear regression was used to determine the relationship between IGD and cognitive function. RESULTS: There were 142 subjects with a mean age of 14 years. Students with IGD significantly had lower score of cognitive function, particularly for domains of attention (p = 0.000), recall memory (p = 0.000), and language (p = 0.002), compared with the counterpart group. Furthermore, multivariate analysis showed that students with IGD were more likely to have lower cognitive function score by 1.40 points than those without IGD (B = –1.40, 95% CI -2.51–-0.29, R2 = 0.469). CONCLUSIONS: IGD was negatively associated with cognitive function. Junior high school students with IGD in Indonesia had lower score of cognitive function compared with students without IGD, particularly in the domains of attention, recall memory, and language. Clinicians, teachers, and parents should be more aware of the detrimental effect of IGD. Further study with larger sample size, diverse subjects, and wider age range is still needed.