Association between Adverse Childhood Experiences and Time Spent Playing Video Games in Adolescents: Results from A-CHILD Study

Satomi Doi, Aya Isumi and Takeo Fujiwara
Additional contact information
Satomi Doi: Department of Global Health Promotion, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), Bunkyo 113-8519, Japan
Aya Isumi: Department of Global Health Promotion, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), Bunkyo 113-8519, Japan
Takeo Fujiwara: Department of Global Health Promotion, Tokyo Medical and Dental University (TMDU), Bunkyo 113-8519, Japan

IJERPH, 2021, vol. 18, issue 19, 1-12

Abstract: Background: Excessive time spent playing video games is associated with adverse health outcomes in adolescents. Although poor child–parent relationship and social relations with peers are considered as possible predictors, little is known as to whether adverse childhood experiences (ACEs) are associated with time spent playing video games. The aim is to examine the association between ACEs and time spent playing video games in adolescents. Methods: We used pooled data from the Adachi Child Health Impact of Living Difficulty (A-CHILD) study in 2016 and 2018, which is a population-based cross-sectional study in Adachi City, Tokyo, Japan ( N = 6799, 4th, 6th, and 8th-grade students). Adolescents answered questionnaires examining the time spent playing video games, per day, on weekdays (“less than 1 h”, “less than 3 h”, and “more than 3 h”) and ACEs (eight types). Results: The results of the ordinal logistic regression analysis showed a positive association between ACE total score and time spent playing video games after adjusting for covariates (1 ACE: OR = 1.28, 95% CI = 1.10–1.48; 2 ACEs: OR = 1.25, 95% CI = 1.06–1.48; 3 + ACEs: OR = 1.44, 95% CI = 1.14–1.82, p for trend < 0.001). Regarding each type of ACE, the experiences of single parenthood, parental history of psychiatric disorders, and peer isolation were independently positively associated with time spent playing video games. Conclusions: Health policy to address ACEs might be important to shorten the time spent playing video games.

Keywords: adolescent; adverse childhood experience; gaming; peer isolation (search for similar items in EconPapers)
JEL-codes: I I1 I3 Q Q5 (search for similar items in EconPapers)
Date: 2021
References: View references in EconPapers View complete reference list from CitEc
Citations: View citations in EconPapers (1)

Downloads: (external link)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10377/pdf (application/pdf)
https://www.mdpi.com/1660-4601/18/19/10377/ (text/html)

Related works:
This item may be available elsewhere in EconPapers: Search for items with the same title.

Export reference: BibTeX RIS (EndNote, ProCite, RefMan) HTML/Text

Persistent link: https://EconPapers.repec.org/RePEc:gam:jijerp:v:18:y:2021:i:19:p:10377-:d:648683

Access Statistics for this article

IJERPH is currently edited by Ms. Jenna Liu

More articles in IJERPH from MDPI
Bibliographic data for series maintained by MDPI Indexing Manager ().