Problematic Use of Video Games in Schools in Northern Benin (2023)

Objective: To study the problematic use of video games among secondary school students in the city of Parakou in 2023. Methods: Descriptive cross-sectional study conducted in the commune of Parakou from December 2022 to July 2023. The study population consisted of students regularly enrolled in public and private secondary schools in the city of Parakou for the 2022-2023 academic year. A two-stage non-proportional stratified sampling technique combined with simple random sampling was adopted. The Problem Video Game Playing (PVP) scale was used to assess problem gambling in the study population, while anxiety and depression were assessed using the Hospital Anxiety and Depression Scale (HADS). Results: A total of 1030 students were included. The mean age of the pupils surveyed was 15.06 ± 2.68 years, with extremes of 10 and 28 years. The [13 - 18] age group was the most represented, with a proportion of 59.6% (614) in the general population. Females predominated, at 52.8% (544), with a sex ratio of 0.89. The prevalence of problematic video game use was 24.9%, measured using the Video Game Playing scale. Associated factors were male gender (p = 0.005), pocket money under 10,000 cfa (p = 0.001) and between 20,000 - 90,000 cfa (p = 0.030), addictive family behavior (p < 0.001), monogamous family (p = 0.023), good relationship with father (p = 0.020), organization of video game competitions (p = 0.001) and definite anxiety (p < 0.001).