Relationship between Internet Gaming Disorder with Depressive Syndrome and Dopamine Transporter Condition in Online Games Player

BACKGROUND: Internet game playing is experiencing rapid growth in both youth and adult populations. The excess playing this game cause negative consequences, including game addiction. Internet Gaming Disorder is an increasingly prevalent disorder, which can have severe consequences in affected young people and their life. AIM: To observe the depressive syndrome and dopamine transporter condition (DAT) to find out the severity of internet gaming disorder. METHODS: To analyse the relationship between IGD and Depressive Syndrome and to analyse the relationship between IGD and DAT in online games player by using Spearman Rank Correlation Analysis. Depression testing is done by using the Patient Health Questionnaire-9 method (PHQ-9). The sample of the experiments of this research was 48 online games players in the internet cafe at Medan Area sub-district, which ages between 20 – 40 years old and have been playing games for at least 12 months RESULTS: It was found that there was strong one-way relation (0.625) between IGD and PHQ-9 significantly (p < 0.01), however, it was found that strong enough (-0.465) relation between IGD and DAT (p < 0.01) and strong opposite relation (-0.680) between PHQ-9 and DAT (p < 0.01). CONCLUSION: There was a relationship between Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) with depressive symptoms and Dopamine Transporter (DAT) level. PHQ-9 score was higher in people with a higher score of IGDS9-SF. As well as DAT level, there was opposite strong enough correlation between IGD and DAT that indicating the higher IGD score, the lower DAT level.