Sophia AchabUniversity of Geneva | UNIGE · Department of Psychiatry
Sophia Achab
MD, Spec, MSc, PhD, CC, MAS Strategic Management Health Institutions
Healthy media use- national preparedness and health professionals' capacity building
About
161
Publications
64,678
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3,102
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Introduction
Additional affiliations
January 2022 - December 2022
Position
- Adjunct Teacher
Description
- Doctoral School in Humanities and Social Sciences : Workshop on Information & communication technology related disorders’ - module Disorders- Master Degree in Psychotherapy.
January 2021 - present
September 2016 - present
Position
- Medical associate Deputy to the Addiction Division Head, Responsible of Specialized clinical and academic Program on Behavioral Addictions
Publications
Publications (161)
Background: Seniors have been only little considered in studies examining problematic internet use and associated health issues, although they may present risk factors that make them particularly vulnerable for the development of problematic internet use.
Objectives: (1) To compare Internet use and problematic use among seniors in Switzerland and...
The World Health Organization (WHO) has added gaming disorder to ICD-11 as a clinical condition associated with distress or interference with personal functioning. This inclusion leads to clinical and public health benefits, such as harmonising terminology, offering clinical landmarks and improving monitoring capabilities and data comparability. Tr...
In this brief letter, we report a new World Health Organization
(WHO)-led project developing gold standard instruments to detect
gaming disorder and gambling disorder following their inclusion in the
‘disorders due to addictive behaviours’ section of the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11)
Gaming activities have conferred numerous benefits during the COVID-19 pandemic. However, some individuals may be at greater risk of problem gaming due to disruption to adaptive routines, increased anxiety and/or depression, and social isolation. This paper presents a summary of 2019–2021 service data from specialist addiction centers in Germany, S...
Among the important changes in the ICD-11 is the addition of 21 new mental disorders. New categories are typically proposed to: a) improve the usefulness of morbidity statistics; b) facilitate recognition of a clinically important but poorly classified mental disorder in order to provide appropriate management; and c) stimulate research into more e...
L'usage des médias sociaux est maintenant ancré dans nos habitudes, remplit plusieurs fonctions sociales et psychologiques, et pour une minorité d'usagers vulnérables, dans certaines circonstances, il peut entraîner des répercussions sur la santé. Le plus souvent, les plaintes concernent les adolescents. La demande est alors focalisée sur la gestio...
La pratique vidéoludique est dans la plupart des cas source de divertissement et de bénéfices sur les plans sociaux et psycho logiques. Cette pratique peut devenir problématique chez des individus présentant des facteurs de vulnérabilité. L'OMS a pris la décision d'inclure le trouble du jeu vidéo dans la CIM11 comme un trouble du spectre addictif....
Addiction medicine is a developing field, with many young professionals opting for a career in this area. However, globally, early-career professionals often face challenges in this field, such as lack of competency-based training due to a shortage of trainers, low availability of institutions with appropriate infrastructure, and limited resources...
The Internet has become an essential tool for adolescents. It is part of their social integration within peers and supports their identity construction. The Internet can also become a source of addiction, especially when used as a coping strategy towards unpleasant life situations. Addiction to the Internet is often linked with an increase in the f...
Jeux de hasard et d’argent, gaming, sexualité, achats, réseaux sociaux, Internet : des conduites addictives sans substance ? État des lieux sur les évidences scientifiques, la terminologie, les échelles de mesure et les prévalences. Rapport de recherche. Lausanne : Addiction Suisse & GREA.
Cognitive-Behavioural Therapy (CBT) is considered the ‘gold standard’ in the treatment of addictive disorders related to excessive technology use. However, the cognitive components of problematic internet use are not yet well-known. The aim of the present study was to explore the cognitive components, that according to problematic users, can lead t...
International Green Crescent Journal
The National Institutes of Health Stroke Scale (NIHSS) is commonly used to triage and monitor the evolution of stroke victims. Data regarding NIHSS knowledge in nurses and physicians working with stroke patients are scarce, and a progressive decline in specific knowledge regarding this challenging scale is to be expected even among NIHSS certified...
Background: Lassitude and a rather high degree of mistrust towards the authorities can make regular or overly constraining COVID-19 infection prevention and control (IPC) campaigns inefficient and even counterproductive. Serious games provide an original, engaging, and potentially effective way of disseminating COVID-19 IPC guidelines. Escape COVID...
Suicidal behavior (SB) is a major problem in patients with substance use disorders (SUDs). However, little is known about specific SB risk factors in this population, and pathogenetic hypotheses are difficult to disentangle. This study investigated some SB and SUD-related endophenotypes, such as impulsivity, aggression, trait anger, and risk-taking...
Pharmacological treatment of addictive behaviors. Review and discussion of evidence.
Addiction medicine is a relatively developing field of medicine with many young, enthusiastic professionals opting for a career in this field. There has been rapid evolution in different domains of clinical care, training and research in the field seen in recent times. The present symposium will cover recent developments in the domains of clinical...
BACKGROUND
Regular or too aggressive COVID-19 infection prevention and control (IPC) campaigns might prove inefficient and could even turn out to be counterproductive because of the rather high degree of mistrust towards the authorities. Serious games represent an original, engaging, and potentially effective way of disseminating COVID-19 IPC guide...
Background:
Lassitude and a rather high degree of mistrust towards the authorities can make regular or overly constraining COVID-19 infection prevention and control (IPC) campaigns inefficient and even counterproductive. Serious games provide an original, engaging, and potentially effective way of disseminating COVID-19 IPC guidelines. Escape COVI...
The Internet has become an essential tool for adolescents. It is part of their social integration within peers and supports their identity construction. The Internet can also become a source of addiction; especially when used as a coping strategy towards unpleasant life situations. The feeling of loneliness is an emotion present during the adolesce...
Overview of conceptual background of cybersex addiction and treatment approaches. Impact of Covid-19 on clinical practice is outlined.
Internet has become a tool of our daily lives; it can nevertheless be
at health risks for excessive users. This is a global and national
public health challenge, and health policy responses have been
shaping up for a decade. Doctors are key players in health systems
for the early detection of these disorders and for the health
promotion in this are...
5th International Congress of Technology Addiction will be held by the Turkish Green
Crescent Society on June 2 – June 3, 2021 from 09:00 AM to 6:30 PM (GMT +3) as a
virtual conference. It will be o ered through Zoom and the Green Crescent Society’s
online platform.
Click here for more info: https://kongre.yesilay.org.tr/en/
BACKGROUND
Most residents of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) are at high risk of complication and death after SARS-CoV-2 infection. In these facilities, viral transmission can be facilitated by shortages of human and material resources, which can lead to suboptimal application of infection prevention and control (IPC) procedures. To improve the d...
Background:
Most residents of long-term care facilities (LTCFs) are at high risk of complication and death after SARS-CoV-2 infection. In these facilities, viral transmission can be facilitated by shortages of human and material resources, which can lead to suboptimal application of infection prevention and control (IPC) procedures. To improve the...
Background and aims
Following the recognition of ‘internet gaming disorder’ (IGD) as a condition requiring further study by the DSM‐5, ‘gaming disorder’ (GD) was officially included as a diagnostic entity by the World Health Organization (WHO) in the eleventh revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD‐11). However, the proposed d...
Background
Nursing home residents are at high risk of complications and death due to COVID-19. Lack of resources, both human and material, amplifies the likelihood of contamination in these facilities where a single employee can contaminate dozens of residents and colleagues. Improving the dissemination of and adhesion to infection prevention and c...
BACKGROUND
Nursing home residents are at high-risk of complications and death due to coronavirus disease 2019 (COVID-19). Lack of resources, both human and material, amplifies the likelihood of contamination in these facilities where a single employee can contaminate dozens of residents and colleagues. Improving the dissemination of and adhesion to...
Background and aims:
Buying-shopping disorder and its transferability to the online sector is controversial. This study investigates in-store and online shopping patterns by comparing data-based modeling to a diagnostic cut-off approach. Further aims were to test model equivalence for gender and identify socio-demographic risk factors.
Methods:...
Guide pour les professionnels en contact avec des parents sur les usages des écrans
The inclusion of gaming disorder (GD) as an official diagnosis in the ICD-11 was a significant milestone for the field. However, the optimal measurement approaches for GD are currently unclear. This comprehensive systematic review aimed to identify and evaluate all available English-language GD tools and their corresponding evidence. A search of Ps...
The inclusion of Gaming disorder within the category of addictive disorders and addictive behaviors of WHO recent ICD-11 classification, is a paradigm shift in the addiction medicine field. It has resulted from decades of increasing scientific evidence of similarities between Gaming disorder and Addictive disorders. This disorder has gained magnitu...
Introduction: The past-year prevalence of problem gambling worldwide averages 2.3%. Switzerland exhibits a slightly lower past-year prevalence rate, of 1.1%, among adults. Only a minority of these adults attend outpatient treatment. Surveyed problem gamblers have explained that they wanted to handle the problem on their own. The option of a web-bas...
The 14-item Compulsive Internet Use Scale (CIUS) is one of the most frequently internationally adapted psychometric instruments developed to assess generalized problematic Internet use. Multiple adaptations of this instrument have led to versions in different languages (e.g., Arabic and French), and different numbers of items (e.g., from 5 to 16 it...
In "Growing in digital era" Report from the Federal Commission for childhood and youth.
Download full report at : www.cfej.ch from 28th of march 2019
Le terme stimulant désigne l'effet de plusieurs groupes de substances qui ont en commun des effets sur la vigilance, mais qui varient concernant leurs effets sur le cours et le contenu de la pensée, sur l'humeur et sur la motricité. On classe habituellement dans ce groupe, des substances de structure chimique et de propriétés pharmacodynamiques var...
About possible contributors and new perspectives to addictive use of cybersex The term « cybersex » refers to the use of the Internet for sexual purposes (pornography, webcams, dating). While moderate use of cybersex could have a positive effect on sexual life, a small fraction of these cyber-users could have difficulties to control their consumpti...
The term « cybersex » refers to the use of the Internet for sexual purposes (pornography, webcams, dating). While moderate use of cybersex could have a positive effect on sexual life, a small fraction of these cyber-users could have difficulties to control their consumption with negative consequences. This phenomenon, whose understanding of the mec...
This PDF contains the complete CISBA in its original French version. There is currently no English version. Any interested person can propose to make a translation. If you plan to use this inventory, feel free to adapt, update or complete it.There is no cut-off score or official composite score, this inventory aims to have a fairly broad overview o...
New drugs available in a click, plethora of games, new regulations
on cannabis, addiction medicine has a lot to do ! In 2018, Switzerland
recognized a training certificate in addiction medicine, pathological
gambling entered into ICD-11 and vaping, first considered with suspicion,
found a place in the pharmacopoeia of the fight against tobacco.
Tha...
New drugs available in a click, plethora of games, new regulations on cannabis, addiction medicine has a lot to do ! In 2018, Switzerland recognized a training certificate in addiction medicine, pathological gambling entered into ICD-11 and vaping, first considered with suspicion, found a place in the pharmacopoeia of the fight against tobacco. Tha...
The use of social network sites (SNSs) has grown dramatically. Numerous studies have shown that SNS users may suffer from excessive use, associated with addictive-like symptoms. With a focus on the popular SNS Facebook (FB), our aims in the current study were twofold: First, to explore the heterogeneity of FB usage and determine which kind of FB ac...
FREE ACCESS ONLINE: https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/abs/10.1111/add.14388
Note: Consortium list in supplementary file.
Dr. King conceived of the letter and wrote the first draft. Joel Billieux, Paul Delfabbro, Marc Potenza, John Saunders, and Dan Stein made substantial edits to multiple versions of the letter. Additional feedback from unnamed...
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...
The prevalence of mobile phone use across the world has increased greatly over the past two decades. Problematic Mobile Phone Use (PMPU) has been studied in relation to public health and comprises various behaviours, including dangerous, prohibited, and dependent use. These types of problematic mobile phone behaviours are typically assessed with th...
OP-1
Background: Gaming disorder is under debate of recognition and definition as a mental and addictive disorder. Complexity to capture what defines pathology in a specific and consen- sual way, calls for specialized clinical practice to be a helpful anchor. Methods: Case studies illustrating different clinical pictures regarding Gaming Disorder w...
The Internet has emerged as a potent source of relationships , leisure, work and information in our society. Sometimes, its use can turn into loss of control or addiction. The concept of addiction has recently been widely transformed and enlarged to include behavioural addictions, such as online gaming disorder. Addiction medicine in the digital er...
Cyberaddiction in Switzerland- Technical Advisory Board Report-2016-2018
Background:
The 7-item Game Addiction Scale (GAS) has been validated under standard confirmatory factor analysis and exhibits good psychometric properties. Whether this scale satisfies the necessary conditions for consideration by item response theory (IRT) modeling remains unknown. However, the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorder...
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...
Various therapeutic approaches are available for the treatment of gambling disorder (GD),
especially cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT; the most widely used treatment). However,
CBT has high dropout and relapse rates as well as non-compliance issues, which may be
partly due to resistance to changing core characteristics, such as executive functioni...
Due to the current discussions regarding the regulation of cannabis consumption, an update of the data on its harmful effects appears to be warranted. One regularly used argument against a less restrictive regulation of cannabis has been its potentially toxic effect on the structure of the brain. A substantial number of specific neuroimaging studie...
Online gambling has gained popularity in the last decade, leading to an important shift in how consumers engage in gambling and in the factors related to problem gambling and prevention. Indebtedness and loneliness have previously been associated with problem gambling. The current study aimed to characterize online gamblers in relation to indebtedn...
Les Troubles liés aux jeux d’argent sont caractérisés par des difficultés à contrôler le temps et l’argent utilisés pour jouer aux jeux d’argent. Malgré la disponibilité de traitements, principalement cognitivo-comportementaux, peu de personnes consultent. Un modèle de traitement possiblement attractif et réaliste pour une bonne partie de personnes...
Online gaming has greatly increased in popularity in recent years, and with this has come a multiplicity of problems due to excessive involvement in gaming. Gaming disorder, both online and offline, has been defined for the first time in the draft of 11th revision of the International Classification of Diseases (ICD-11). National surveys have shown...
Background:
To date, no drugs have been approved for gambling disorder. Numerous publications have described the value of opioid antagonists. Indeed, the mesocorticolimbic dopaminergic pathway has been suggested as the underlying cause of reward-seeking behaviour, and it is modulated by the opioid system.
Objective:
This study aims to evaluate t...
WHO Forum on alcohol, drugs and addictive behaviours
WHO Forum on alcohol, drugs and addictive behaviours Enhancing public health actions through partnerships and collaboration