This study aims to deliver new insights regarding gaming practices of young people that receive some form of help according to the Act concerning support and service for persons with certain functional impairments (LSS). It also aims to explore whether the gaming practices are related to their mental health and coping capabilities through the measure of sense of coherence (SOC). The gaming revolution is sweeping the world and Sweden too has got its fair share of gamers. About half of the Swedish population are playing online usually for the sake of fun. We know a lot about its extent today but there are still many questions left unanswered about how games actually affect the people that are playing and vice versa. Further, young people with intellectual and cognitive impairments tend to be left out of the ongoing debate. Fifteen structured interviews were conducted during 2015 of which eleven were selected for further analysis. Both closed and open questions were utilized in the questionnaire alongside the SOC-13 questionnaire. The interviewees were between 15 and 30 years old and played online games to various extents. The vast majority of the group played daily and tended to play more than two hours each session. The mean SOC, sense of coherence, for the group was 54,82 with a standard deviation of 9,1 and a median of 56 which both are remarkably low. The results show that there are correlations between a low SOC and both how often and for how long the interviewees were playing each session. The findings suggest that there is a need for further research regarding how online gaming affect young people with cognitive and intellectual impairments and what meanings these young people attribute to games.
