Parent-child discrepancies in screening for Internet Gaming Disorder: Evidence from a clinical sample of Japanese adolescents.

Abstract

Aim: Questionnaire-based screening tools for Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) are widely used in clinical and epidemiological research. However, discrepancies between child self-reports and parent reports may complicate the interpretation of screening results, particularly when cutoff-based classifications are applied.

Methods: Participants were 58 adolescents (aged 10-18 years) attending child and adolescent psychiatry outpatient clinics and their parents. Gaming-related problems were assessed using parallel screening instruments: the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale for Children (IGDS-C) and the Parental version of the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale (PIGDS). Parent-child agreement was examined using dimensional analyses (Pearson's correlation), paired comparisons (paired t-test with Wilcoxon signed-rank test as a sensitivity analysis), and categorical agreement indices (concordance rate, Cohen's κ, and McNemar's test) based on the conventional cutoff score.

Results: Parent- and child-reported IGDS scores were moderately correlated (r = 0.61, p < 0.001), indicating substantial dimensional concordance. However, parents reported significantly higher IGDS scores than children (mean difference = -1.09, p < 0.001), a finding confirmed by the Wilcoxon signed-rank test. Categorical agreement based on cutoff-based screening classifications was low (κ = 0.16), with most discordant cases reflecting parent-positive and child-negative classifications. McNemar's test demonstrated a significant asymmetry in these discrepancies.

Conclusion: Although parent and child IGDS scores demonstrate meaningful dimensional concordance, the application of fixed cutoff-based screening classifications substantially reduces agreement, a pattern that may reflect differences in evaluative thresholds between informants. These findings highlight limitations of relying solely on self-reported cutoff-based measures and underscore the need for multi-informant, dimensional approaches when interpreting IGD screening results in youth.