Span J Psychiatry Ment Health. 2025 Sep 5:S2950-2853(25)00038-9. doi: 10.1016/j.sjpmh.2025.07.002. Online ahead of print.
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 Centre ‘Adcom’ (Madrid, Spain) is one of these strategies, a pioneering and innovative program aimed at the general population to identify people with addictions such as GD, in an attempt tp 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 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.
PMID:40915539 | DOI:10.1016/j.sjpmh.2025.07.002
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