Gambling & mental illness

Summary

Gambling is a popular pastime for many individuals, but it remains a significant public health issue in Australia, with negative impacts on psychological, social, familial and/or occupational functioning for many people. While a recent survey suggested that only 0.8% of people in Victoria are problem gamblers, research from overseas suggests that rates of gambling problems may be substantially higher among people with mental health problems. We surveyed 837 clients of a range of different mental health services (public, private, and community outreach) around Victoria to assess rates of gambling problems and whether gambling problems were related to certain mental health and substance use disorders.

While we found that occasional gambling was less common among the mental health service users than among the general Victorian population, problem gambling, the rate of problem gambling was 7 times higher among service users than the general population. Of the clients who did gamble in the past year, over half gambled in ways that put them at risk of experiencing problems. People with a diagnosis of a psychotic disorder, drug use disorder, bipolar disorder, or borderline personality disorder, were particularly at risk of experiencing gambling problems.

Despite these elevated rates of gambling problems, the majority of clients had not been screened or asked about gambling problems at the mental health service they were attending. This suggests that clinicians may be missing opportunities to address gambling problems that may be contributing to poor mental health outcomes. Increased use of routine screening in these services may improve this situation.

The full report on this research can be found at:
https://responsiblegambling.vic.gov.au/about-us/news-and-media/new-report-shows-gambling-problems-and-mental-illness-frequently-occur-together/

An article about this research in the Journal of Behavioral Addictions can be found at:
https://akademiai.com/doi/full/10.1556/2006.6.2017.077

A short summary of the findings described in that article can also be found at:
http://www.greo.ca/Modules/EvidenceCentre/files/Manning et al(2017) Problem gambling and substance use in patients

An additional article examining the usefulness of different gambling screening questionnaires, based on data from this research, can be found at:
https://onlinelibrary.wiley.com/doi/full/10.1111/add.14150