Search Results
Abstract
Background and aims
Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder (CSBD) is characterized by a persistent failure to control intense and recurrent sexual impulses, urges, and/or thoughts, resulting in repetitive sexual behavior that causes a marked impairment in important areas of functioning. Despite its recent inclusion in the forthcoming ICD-11, concerns regarding its assessment, diagnosis, prevalence or clinical characteristics remain. The purpose of this study was to identify participants displaying CSBD through a novel data-driven approach in two independent samples and outline their sociodemographic, sexual, and clinical profile.
Methods
Sample 1 included 1,581 university students (females = 56.9%; M age = 20.58) whereas sample 2 comprised 1,318 community members (females = 43.6%; M age = 32.37). First, we developed a new composite index to assess the whole range of CSBD symptoms based on three previously validated scales. Based on this new composite index, we subsequently identified individuals with CSBD through a cluster analytic approach.
Results
The estimated occurrence of CSBD was 10.12% in sample 1 and 7.81% in sample 2. Participants with CSBD were mostly heterosexual males, younger than respondents without CSBD, reported higher levels of sexual sensation seeking and erotophilia, an increased offline and especially online sexual activity, more depressive and anxious symptoms, and poorer self-esteem.
Conclusions
This research provides further evidence on the occurrence of CSBD based on an alternative data-driven approach, as well as a detailed and nuanced description of the sociodemographic, sexual, and clinical profile of adults with this condition. Clinical implications derived from these findings are discussed in detail.
Background and aims
Existing research shows that gambling disorder patients (GDPs) process gambling outcomes abnormally when compared against healthy controls (HCs). These anomalies present the form of exaggerated or distorted beliefs regarding the expected utility of outcomes and one’s ability to predict or control gains and losses, as well as retrospective reinterpretations of what caused them. This study explores the possibility that the emotional regulation strategies GDPs use to cope with aversive events are linked to these cognitions.
Methods
41 GDPs and 45 HCs, matched in sociodemographic variables, were assessed in gambling severity, emotion-regulation strategies (cognitive emotion-regulation questionnaire, CERQ), and gambling-related cognitions (gambling-related cognitions scale, GRCS).
Results
GDPs showed higher scores in all gambling-related cognition dimensions. Regarding emotion regulation, GDPs were observed to use self-blame and catastrophizing, but also positive refocusing, more often than controls. Additionally, in GDPs, putatively adaptive CERQ strategies shared a significant portion of variance with South Oaks gambling screen severity and GRCS beliefs. Shared variability was mostly attributable to the roles of refocusing on planning and putting into perspective at positively predicting severity and the interpretative bias (GDPs propensity to reframe losses in a more benign way), respectively.
Discussion and conclusions
Results show links between emotion-regulation strategies and problematic gambling-related behaviors and cognitions. The pattern of those links supports the idea that GDPs use emotion-regulation strategies, customarily regarded as adaptive, to cope with negative emotions, so that the motivational and cognitive processing of gambling outcomes becomes less effective in shaping gambling-related behavior.
