Evaluation of a School-Based Group Counseling Program for Adolescent Internet Gaming Disorder

Purpose: We evaluated the outcomes of a school-based group counseling program for adolescent Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD). The program aimed to enhance self-regulation, resilience, parent–child attachment, and parental supervision and reduce gaming hours, IGD severity, IGD symptoms, depression, and parent–child conflict. Method: In this quasi-experimental study, out of 115 sary school students in Singapore ( M age = 13.7, SD = 1.56 ) who reported five or more out of ten IGD symptoms, 61 participated in the intervention and 54 served as a nonintervention group. Results: Repeated Measures ANCOVA revealed that compared with the non-intervention, the program was effective in improving self-regulation ( F = 7.84, p = .006), resilience ( F = 4.90, p = .03), weekend gaming hours ( F = 9.18, p = .003), IGD severity ( F = 7.68, p = .007) and depression ( F = 14.3, p < .000). Discussion: We suggest that the program improve parental support components while focusing on self-regulation.