Association between the Internet Gaming Disorder and Anxiety and Depression among University Students during COVID-19 Pandemic

Round 1

Reviewer 1 Report

Introduction 

The introduction was tedious and had a lot of superfluous material.

Methods

“All participants had to fulfil the inclusion criteria of being between 18 to 40 years old? “

I'm not sure if the age range represents the university students during school days.

“Participants that were previously diagnosed with ADHD, Autism, or other Developmental Disorder, were unable to understand or speak the language used in this study (English or Malay language) and not consented to participate in this study were excluded from this study.” 

I do not understand how to verify the exclusion in this study during Movement Control Order.

Results

I have not found any highlights in this study. 

Discussion

In this study, we found that the prevalence of IGD during pandemic COVID-19 is 9.86%.

9.86% is lower than 17.7%.  As a result, is COVID-19's influence on IGD in Malaysia considerable or insignificant? This result has perplexed me.

Author Response

Dear editor,

We had prepare the reply to all reviewer.

The correction was prepared and attached at below link

Thank you 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 2 Report

The goal of this study was to determine if higher levels of anxiety, depression and stress made university students in Malaysia more susceptible to developing Internet Gaming Disorder (IGD) during the COVID 19 pandemic.   The approach used self-reported online questionnaires to assess co-existing levels of stress, depression anxiety and IGD in 213 college students. The prevalence of IGD in this population was 9.86%- 21 students in all. The prevalence of IGD before and during the pandemic was not specifically compared, however.

Overall, the paper could use a careful edit by one who is well-versed in written English.

The Introduction is well-done and informative, although it is probably overly long.

The methods are straightforward. The Chi-square test and binary logistical regression were used to determine the relationship of various factors with IGD.  The authors may want to describe exactly why these tests were used and what was compared, to bring along those interested readers with rusty or non-existent backgrounds in statistics.

The Tables need reformatting work as they are hard to read.  For example, the numbers in column two do not horizontally align with the categories described in column 1, especially in Table 2. The center justification of the words in column one is messy looking.  Left justification would be an improvement. Also, the addition of lines or spaces between categories might help.

Table 2. There was no change in gaming time during the pandemic. This seems strange,

given the robust effect of stress on IGD.

Specific comments/suggestions to improve the paper follow.

Line 128. Correlational studies generally do not “prove” causation.

Lines 128-131. Rewrite for clarity

Lines 134-136. Imprecise. What are the familial factors?

Line 151. “Gadget” seems jargony. How about “device”?

157-158. Rewrite for clarity.

Lines 180-182. This sentence seems to describe five parts, rather than three. Depression, anxiety and stress might be grouped together as “affective state.”

Author Response

Dear editor,

We had prepare the reply to all reviewer.

The correction was prepared and attached at below link

Thank you 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 3 Report

This paper investigated the association between Internet Gaming Disorder and Depression, Anxiety as well as Stress, as well as gaming elements during COVID-19 pandemic. The analysis is comprehensive. However, the samples in this paper come from the same university, and there are only 213 samples, so whether the sample size is too small and whether the sample distribution is too simple to reflect the overall situation of university students indicated by the title.

Author Response

Dear editor,

We had prepare the reply to all reviewer.

The correction was prepared and attached at below link

Thank you 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors analysed topic of Internet gaming disorder (IGD)among university students during COVID pandemic period. 

The introduction section is too long and should be shortened. 

Main issue is methodology of this study.

According the last metaanalysis on this topic (Alimoradi, Z., Lotfi, A., Lin, C. Y., Griffiths, M. D., & Pakpour, A. H. (2022). Estimation of behavioral addiction prevalence during COVID-19 pandemic: a systematic review and meta-analysis. Current addiction reports, 1-32.) the prevalence of IGD is 5.3 %. 

In the methods section authors reported prevalence of ICG  17,7% (Ref of  2019, before COVID) and calculated the sample size according this data.  So, the sample size of 213 participants is too small to evaluate the results and evaleuate the comparisons among groups.

The authors reported that this study involving all levels of students in two different higher education institution campuses located in the Klang Valley, Politeknik Sultan Salahuddin Abdul Aziz Shah, Shah Alam and University Tenaga Nasional, UNITEN in Kajang. How many students are studying in those two campus? How many students were invited to participate in this study? How many refused or met exclusion criteria (ADHD, autism or other)? How did authors clarify data on mental health issues of the students? Please clarity the random inclusion into this study.

Overall, such small sample size does not allow to draw valid conclusions about IGD.

Author Response

Dear editor,

We had prepare the reply to all reviewer.

The correction was prepared and attached at below link

Thank you 

Author Response File: Author Response.pdf

Round 2

Reviewer 4 Report

The authors' responses and the corrections of the manuscript improved the overall quality of the manuscript.

However, the sample is very small and I understand that this data could not be corrected.