WHO to classify Gaming Disorder as mental health condition

The World Health Organisation (WHO) is set to classify gaming disorder as a mental health condition in its forthcoming 11th International Classification of Diseases (ICD) is due to be published in 2018.
Mental health experts and psychiatrists believe that internet and gaming addiction though affecting small population now, has become emerging psychological malady and it is likely to be major mental health problem in the coming years.

Need

The Diagnostic and Statistical Manual (DSM) of Mental Disorders-V, a diagnostic bible for mental health professionals published by American Psychiatric Association already has classified gaming disorder as a mental health condition. Nearly 7% of population studied for gaming and internet addiction have exhibited depressive symptoms, somatisation and anxiety, including behavioural changes and sleep disturbances.

International Classification of Diseases (ICD)

ICD is the international standard diagnostic tool for epidemiology, health management and clinical purposes. Its full official name is International Statistical Classification of Diseases and Related Health Problems. It is maintained by WHO.  It is revised periodically and is currently in its tenth revision.

Purpose

The ICD is designed as health care classification system to provide a system of diagnostic codes for classifying diseases, including nuanced classifications of wide variety of signs, symptoms, complaints, abnormal findings, social circumstances, and external causes of injury or disease.
It maps health conditions to corresponding generic categories together with specific variations, assigning for these designated code, up to six characters long. It also promotes international comparability in collection, processing, classification, and presentation of these statistics. It is core statistically based classificatory diagnostic system for health care related issues of the WHO Family of International Classifications (WHO-FIC).

Month: Current Affairs - December, 2017