A population-based screening program provides insights into the characteristics and behaviors of individuals who self-refer for gambling disorder.

Abstract

Introduction: Since only around 10% of people with gambling disorder (GD) seek professional treatment or attend self-help groups, multiple strategies are needed to improve this rate. The proposal of the Behavioral Addictions Center 'Adcom' (Madrid, Spain) is one such strategy, a pioneering and innovative program aimed at the general population to identify people with addictions such as GD, in an attempt to offer them appropriate evidence-based treatments.

Materials and methods: We analyzed information obtained from the first 305 adults who voluntarily sought attention at Adcom for self-referred gambling, and conducted a descriptive, cross-sectional and observational study of this population.

Results: A total of 265 of these 305 individuals were tagged as GD and were eventually included in the study, 87.2% of whom were men. The mean age of this sample was 36.9 years old and while 49.8% were treated for self-referred offline gambling addiction, the remaining 50.2% self-referred to online gambling addiction. Other psychopathological symptoms were evident in 57.4% of the participants, with a Global Severity Index T-score of 62.6 (± 12.2). Based on the SCL-90, depression (63.6%), psychoticism (62.6%), anxiety (66.7%) and obsession/compulsion (59.3%) were present in more than half of our participants, while 37.4% were diagnosed with ADHD. A multivariate regression analysis revealed that being born in Spain and excessive Internet use were independent predictors of online gambling addiction.

Conclusions: This study of problem gamblers recruited in a non-clinical, self-referred setting confirms that GD is associated with an elevated presence of other mental disorders, identifying predictors of online and offline gambling addiction.