The relationship between spiritual well-being and game addiction of youths: a cross-sectional study

This study explores the correlation between spiritual well-being and game addiction among Chinese youths in Hong Kong. To examine such a relationship, cross-sectional data (N = 401) were taken from a sample of 209 Chinese university students in 2021 and 192 Chinese university students in 2022. They are between 18–21 years old. The participants answered the Spiritual Well-being Questionnaire to gauge their spiritual well-being in the personal-communal, environmental and transcendental domains. Then, the respondents accomplished the Game Addiction Scale 21 to assess the extent of their gaming use in seven dimensions, namely, salience, tolerance, mood modification, relapse, withdrawal, conflict and problems of game addiction. The study revealed a negative correlation between the three domains of spiritual well-being and the seven dimensions of game addiction. Moreover, multiple regression analysis showed that the personal-communal and environmental domains of spiritual well-being accounted for 59.0% and 10% of the variance in students’ overall game addiction, respectively. The personal-communal domain was found to be the strongest predictor of game addiction. As an effective preventive strategy and treatment, the spiritual well-being and health of adolescents should be enhanced.