Unraveling the Impact of Early Adversity and Perpetration on Problematic Gambling in Young Adults: Insights from the Add Health Study.

Abstract

This study investigates the impact of childhood adversity on problematic gambling in early adulthood. Data from 16,760 young adults (24-32 years old) who participated in the National Longitudinal Study of Adolescent to Adult Health (Add Health) were studied. Gambling behaviors were categorized as no gambling, non-problematic and problematic gambling based on self-reported responses. Multivariable logistic regression modeling examined whether childhood perpetration-related arrests and traumas (neglect, emotional, physical, sexual) predicted gambling behaviors after adjusting for sociodemographic characteristics. Most young adults reported non-problematic gambling (n = 14,228, 85.5%), with 3.9% (n = 591) reporting problematic gambling. Problematic gambling was significantly more common in people who were Non-Hispanic Black (p < 0.01), male (p < 0.01), and who had past 30-day alcohol (p < 0.01), cigarette (p < 0.01), and marijuana use (p < 0.01). Of the nine trauma types examined, participants experienced an average of 0.9 types of childhood trauma, with problematic gambling experiencing significantly more types (mean: 1.2, SD: 0.1, p = 0.04). In comparison to those with non-problematic gambling, participants with problematic gambling had 2.4 increased odds of reporting their health was fair/poor rather than excellent/very good/good (95% CI: 1.4, 4.1), 1.8 increased odds of past 30-day cigarette use (95% CI: 1.2, 2.6), and 0.3 decreased odds of being female (95% CI: 0.2, 0.4). Childhood trauma and perpetration-related arrests were not significant predictors of problematic gambling in young adulthood. Young adults with problematic gambling reported a wider variety of childhood traumas, yet it did not predict future gambling behaviors. Rather, these findings suggest sex and smoking status may be associated with gambling behaviors.