The proposed introduction of gaming disorder (GD) in the 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11) developed by the World Health Organization (WHO) has led to a lively debate over the past year. Besides the broad support for the decision in the academic press, a recent publication by van Rooij et al. (2018) repeated the criticism raised against the inclusion of GD in ICD-11 by Aarseth et al. (2017). We argue that this group of researchers fails to recognize the clinical and public health considerations, which support the WHO perspective. It is important to recognize a range of biases that may influence this debate; in particular, the gaming industry may wish to diminish its responsibility by claiming that GD is not a public health problem, a position which maybe supported by arguments from scholars based in media psychology, computer games research, communication science, and related disciplines. However, just as with any other disease or disorder in the ICD-11, the decision whether or not to include GD is based on clinical evidence and public health needs. Therefore, we reiterate our conclusion that including GD reflects the essence of the ICD and will facilitate treatment and prevention for those who need it.

The nine-item Internet Gaming Disorder Scale – Short Form (IGDS9-SF) is one of the most popular instruments developed based on DSM-5 to assess gaming addiction internationally. Given the number of common instruments to assess and diagnose gaming disorder cross-culturally, validity and reliability studies of instruments such as the IGDS9-SF have become more important. Therefore, the aim of the present study was to adapt and examine psychometric properties of IGDS9-SF in Turkish. A total of 455 participants aged between 10 and 29 years were recruited to take part in the present study. Validity of the IGDS9-SF was assessed in two ways: confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) and criterion-related validity. CFA revealed that IGDS9-SF was unidimensional. A significant correlation between IGDS9-SF and Internet Addiction Scale indicated criterion-related validity. One supportive finding for the validity was the significant difference found between the upper and lower 27-percentile groups in terms of IGDS9-SF scores. The IGDS9-SF also showed satisfactory levels of reliability using Cronbach’s alpha (.82), Guttman’s split-half (.75), and testretest reliability coefficient (.78). It is concluded that the IGDS9-SF appears to be a valid and reliable scale to assess IGD among Turkish adolescents and young adults.Citatiton: Arıcak, O. T., Dinç, M., Yay, M., & Griffiths M. D. (2018). Adapting the Short Form of the Internet Gaming Disorder Scale into Turkish: Validity and reliability. Addicta: The Turkish Journal on Addictions, 5, 615‒636. http://dx.doi.org/10.15805/addicta.2018.5.4.0027