Advisory

A Primary Care Pediatrician's Guide to Assessing Problematic Interactive Media Use

Aug 2019 🇺🇸 Current Opinion in Pediatrics (Wolters Kluwer) PAYWALLED — LINKED, NOT HOSTED

Published in Current Opinion in Pediatrics, this clinical guidance piece by Cameron Nereim, David Bickham, and Michael Rich walks general pediatricians through how to spot and evaluate problematic interactive media use (PIMU) during ordinary well-child visits. Drawing on existing research, the authors note that internet gaming disorder shows up in a small share of young people worldwide and is frequently seen alongside separately diagnosed anxiety, depression, or ADHD, rather than presenting as a stand-alone problem. Instead of a single test, the piece offers screening questions and functional-impairment markers — falling grades, withdrawal from family or friends, sleep disruption — clinicians can use to decide whether a family needs closer follow-up, and it summarizes the outpatient-therapy and, for severe cases, residential options available once a concern is confirmed. TechKids Foundation cites it as a look at how Rich's own field trains frontline pediatricians to approach these evaluations.

Internet gaming disorder est. 0.3%–1.0% of youth globally

The authors cite existing prevalence estimates for internet gaming disorder in the general youth population, reported as roughly 0.3 to 1.0 percent worldwide.

ADHD co-occurs in an estimated 27%–83% of affected adolescents

The guide reports a wide range of comorbid ADHD diagnoses among adolescents identified with problematic interactive media use, reflecting variation across the studies it draws on.

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CITATION

Nereim, Cameron, David Bickham, and Michael Rich. "A Primary Care Pediatrician's Guide to Assessing Problematic Interactive Media Use." Current Opinion in Pediatrics 31, no. 4 (August 2019): 435–441. https://doi.org/10.1097/MOP.0000000000000771

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