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- Author or Editor: Fernando Fernández-Aranda x
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Abstract
Background and aims
Theoretical background and previous data provide some similarities between problematic gambling and eating behaviors, and a theoretically increased clinical severity in individuals suffering from both conditions. However, large datasets are lacking, and therefore, the present study aimed to study, in a nationwide register material, psychiatric comorbidity, age and gender in gambling disorder (GD) patients with or without eating disorder (ED).
Methods
Diagnostic data from a nationwide register were used, including all individuals with a GD diagnosis in specialized health care in Sweden, in the years 2005–2016 (N = 2,099). Patients with GD and an ED diagnosis (n = 57) were compared to GD patients without ED.
Results
Patients with GD+ED were significantly more likely than other GD patients to also have a diagnosis of drug use disorder, depressive disorders, bipolar disorders, other mood disorder, anxiety disorders, personality disorders, and neuropsychiatric disorders, when controlling for gender. In logistic regression, a comorbid ED in GD was associated with female gender, younger age, depressive disorder and personality disorders.
Discussion and conclusion
In nationwide register data, despite the low number of GD+ED patients, GD patients with ED appear to have a more severe psychiatric comorbidity than GD patients without ED. The combined GD+ED conditions may require particular screening and clinical attention, as well as further research in larger and longitudinal studies.
Background and aims
Abnormal cognitions are among the most salient domain-specific features of gambling disorder. The aims of this study were: (a) to examine and validate a Spanish version of the Gambling-Related Cognitions Scale (GRCS; Raylu & Oei, 2004) and (b) to examine associations between cognitive distortion levels, impulsivity, and gambling behavior.
Methods
This study first recruited a convenience sample of 500 adults who had gambled during the previous year. Participants were assessed using the Spanish version of GRCS (GRCS-S) questionnaire, the UPPS-P impulsivity questionnaire, measures of gambling behavior, and potentially relevant confounders. Robust confirmatory factor analysis methods on half the sample were used to select the best models from a hypothesis-driven set. The best solutions were validated on the other half, and the resulting factors were later correlated with impulsivity dimensions (in the whole n = 500 factor analysis sample) and clinically relevant gambling indices (in a separate convenience sample of 137 disordered and non-disordered gamblers; validity sample).
Results
This study supports the original five-factor model, suggests an alternative four-factor solution, and confirms the psychometric soundness of the GRCS-S. Importantly, cognitive distortions consistently correlated with affect- or motivation-driven aspects of impulsivity (urgency and sensation seeking), but not with cognitive impulsivity (lack of premeditation and lack of perseverance).
Discussion and conclusions
Our findings suggest that the GRCS-S is a valid and reliable instrument to identify gambling cognitions in Spanish samples. Our results expand upon previous research signaling specific associations between gambling-related distortions and affect-driven impulsivity in line with models of motivated reasoning.
Abstract
Background and aims
Food addiction (FA) and substance use (SU) have frequently been reported in patients with eating disorders (EDs). Our study aimed to assess the prevalence rates of FA and/or lifetime problematic alcohol and illicit drug use among patients with specific ED, such as: bulimia nervosa (BN), binge eating disorder (BED), and other specified feeding and eating disorder (OSFED). We sought to identify clinical, psychopathological, and personality profiles involved in these addictive behavior-based phenotypes.
Methods
The total sample was 527 patients (176 BN, 115 BED, and 236 OSFED). FA was assessed through the Yale Food Addiction Scale 2.0. To determine lifetime SU, a semi-structured clinical interview was carried out.
Results
Patients with BN had the highest rates of FA both with and without SU. No gender differences were obtained for the prevalence of current FA and/or lifetime SU. Patients reporting at least one addictive-related behavior exhibited increased clinical severity compared to those who reported none. Increased impulsivity (such as high lack of premeditation, sensation seeking, and positive urgency) and low self-directedness were differentiating factors for presenting one or two addictive behaviors.
Discussion and Conclusions
Overall, patients presenting with at least one addictive-like behavior reported a poorer clinical status than those without. Also, patients with FA and SU exhibited a more dysfunctional profile characterized by high impulsivity and low self-directedness. These findings would support the need for targeted treatments to reduce impulsivity and increase self-directedness, especially in patients with any addictive-related behavior, as a step towards improving their treatment outcome.
Background and aims
The recent growth of Internet use has led to an increase of potentially problematic behaviors that can be engaged online, such as online gambling or Internet gaming. The aim of this study is to better conceptualize Internet gaming disorder (IGD) by comparing it with gambling disorder (GD) patients who only gamble online (online GD).
Methods
A total of 288 adult patients (261 online GD and 27 IGD) completed self-reported questionnaires for exploring psychopathological symptoms, food addiction (FA), and personality traits.
Results
Both clinical groups presented higher psychopathological scores and less functional personality traits when compared with a normative Spanish population. However, when comparing IGD to online GD, some singularities emerged. First, patients with IGD were younger, more likely single and unemployed, and they also presented lower age of disorder onset. In addition, they displayed lower somatization and depressive scores together with lower prevalence of tobacco use but higher FA scores and higher mean body mass index. Finally, they presented lower novelty seeking and persistence traits.
Discussion
GD is fully recognized as a behavioral addiction, but IGD has been included in the Appendix of DSM-5 as a behavioral addiction that needs further study. Our findings suggest that IGD and online GD patients share some emotional distress and personality traits, but patients with IGD also display some differential characteristics, namely younger age, lower novelty seeking scores and higher BMI, and FA scores.
Conclusions
IGD presents some characteristics that are not extensive to online GD. These specificities have potential clinical implications and they need to be further studied.
Background and aims
Gambling disorder (GD) presents high rates of suicidality. The combined influences of emotion dysregulation and trait impulsivity are crucially important (albeit understudied) for developing strategies to treat GD and prevent suicide attempts. The aim of this study is to investigate the association between trait impulsivity, emotion dysregulation, and the dispositional use of emotion regulation (ER) strategies with suicidal ideation and psychopathological symptom severity in GD.
Methods
The sample composed of 249 patients with GD (166 with suicidal ideation) who underwent face-to-face clinical interviews and completed questionnaires to assess psychopathological symptoms, impulsive traits, and ER.
Results
Patients with GD who presented suicidal ideation were older and had a later age of GD onset and higher GD severity. Analyses of variance showed higher comorbid symptoms, emotion dysregulation, and trait impulsivity in patients with suicidal ideation. Still, no significant differences were found in the use of ER strategies. SEM analysis revealed that a worse psychopathological state directly predicted suicidal ideation and that both emotion dysregulation and GD severity indirectly increased the risk of suicidal ideation through this state. High trait impulsivity predicted GD severity. Finally, a history of suicide attempts was directly predicted by suicidal ideation.
Conclusions
Patients with GD are at risk of presenting suicidal behaviors. The results of this study revealed the importance of comorbid psychopathology in the occurrence of suicidal ideation and the indirect effect of trait impulsivity and emotion dysregulation on suicidality. Thus, suicidal rates in GD could possibly be reduced by specifically targeting these domains during treatment.
Abstract
Background and aims
Increased delay discounting is associated with obesity and binge eating disorder (BED). Although BED and obesity frequently co-occur, the neural mechanisms underlying delay discounting in these conditions remain poorly understood.
Methods
Thirtyfive women with obesity, including 10 participants with obesity and BED and 31 controls completed a monetary delay discounting task during functional magnetic resonance imaging.
Results
We identified that increased discounting rates were associated with decreased activity in the left anterior insula in participants with obesity compared to controls when choosing immediate rewards over delayed rewards (P FWE < 0.05). An exploratory analysis comparing the BED subsample to the other groups did not detect significant differences.
Discussion and conclusions
Our findings suggest decreased activity in the anterior insula may underlie heightened delay discounting in individuals with obesity, contributing the probability of choosing immediate rewards over delayed rewards based on emotional states. Future studies including larger, more diverse samples are required to confirm these effects.
Background and aims
Gray’s Reinforcement Sensitivity Theory has been widely applied to different clinical populations, but few studies have reported empirical evidence based on this theory for treatment outcomes in patients with gambling disorder (GD) and compulsive buying (CB). The aims of this study were to explore the association between clinical variables and personality traits with reward and punishment sensitivity (RPS) levels in women (n = 88) who met diagnostic criteria for GD (n = 61) and CB (n = 27), and to determine the predictive capacity of RPS for primary short-term outcomes in a cognitive-behavioral therapy (CBT) intervention.
Methods
The CBT intervention consisted of 12 weekly sessions. Data on patients’ personality traits, RPS levels, psychopathology, sociodemographic factors, GD, and CB behavior were used in our analysis.
Results
High RPS levels were associated with higher psychopathology in both CB and GD, and were a risk factor for dropout in the CB group. In the GD group, higher reward sensitivity scores increased the risk of dropout.
Discussion and conclusions
Our findings suggest that both sensitivity to reward and sensitivity to punishment independently condition patients’ response to treatment for behavioral addictions. The authors uphold that CBT interventions for such addictions could potentially be enhanced by taking RPS into consideration.
Background and aims
Pathological buying (PB) is a behavioral addiction that presents comorbidity with several psychiatric disorders. Despite the increase in the prevalence estimates of PB, relatively few PB instruments have been developed. Our aim was to assess the psychometric properties of the Spanish version of the pathological buying screener (PBS) and to explore the associations between PB, psychopathology, and personality traits.
Methods
A total of 511 participants, including gambling disorder (GD) and eating disorder (ED) patients diagnosed according to DSM-5 criteria, as well as healthy controls (HCs), took part in the study.
Results
Higher PB prevalence was obtained in ED patients than in the other two study groups (ED 12.5% vs. 1.3% HC and 2.7% GD). Confirmatory factor analysis (CFA) verified the 13-item structure of the PBS, and indexes of convergent and discriminant capacity were estimated. CFA confirmed the structure in two factors (excessive buying behavior and loss of control) with excellent internal consistency (α = .92 and .86, respectively). Good convergent capacity was obtained with external psychopathology and personality measures (positive correlations with novelty seeking and negative associations with self-directedness and harm avoidance were found). Good discriminative capacity to differentiate between the study groups was obtained.
Discussion and conclusions
This study provides support for the reliability and validity of the Spanish adaptation of the PBS. Female sex, higher impulsivity, and higher psychopathology were associated with PB.
Background and aims
Recent technological developments have brought about notable changes in the way people gamble. The widespread use of mobile Internet devices and gambling websites has led to a significant leap in the number of people who recreationally gamble. However, for some, gambling can turn into a psychiatric disorder resembling substance addiction. At present, there is a shortage of studies examining differences between adults with gambling disorder (GD) who exclusively make sports bets online, GD patients that are non-sports Internet gamblers, and offline gamblers. Therefore, this study was undertaken to determine the differences between these three groups, considering sociodemographic, personality, and clinical characteristics.
Methods
The sample consisted of 2,743 treatment-seeking male patients from the Pathological Gambling Unit at a university hospital. All patients met DSM-5 criteria for GD.
Results
We found that gamblers who exclusively engaged in non-sports Internet gambling activities were younger than offline gamblers and online sports gamblers. Non-sports Internet gamblers were also more likely to have greater levels of debt compared with offline gamblers. In terms of personality characteristics, our sample displayed low levels of self-directedness and cooperativeness and high levels of novelty seeking. In addition, online sports gamblers obtained higher scores in persistence than non-sports Internet gamblers and offline gamblers.
Discussion and conclusion
Although differences if terms of gambling severity were not identified between groups, GD patients who exclusively bet online appear to possess distinct personality characteristics and higher debt levels compared with offline gamblers.
Background
The prevalence of gambling disorder (GD) in women has increased, but, to date, few studies have explored the features of clinical GD subtypes in female samples.
Aims
The aim of this study is to identify empirical clusters based on clinical/sociodemographic variables in a sample of treatment-seeking women with GD.
Methods
Agglomerative hierarchical clustering was applied to a sample of n = 280 patients, using sociodemographic variables, psychopathology, and personality traits as indicators for the grouping procedure.
Results
Three mutually exclusive groups were obtained: (a) Cluster 1 (highly dysfunctional; n = 82, 29.3%) endorsed the highest levels in gambling severity, comorbid psychopathology, novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and self-transcendence, and the lowest scores in self-directedness and cooperativeness; (b) Cluster 2 (dysfunctional; n = 142, 50.7%) achieved medium mean scores in gambling severity and psychopathological symptoms; and (c) Cluster 3 (functional; n = 56, 20.0%) obtained the lowest mean scores in gambling severity and in psychopathology, and a personality profile characterized by low levels in novelty seeking, harm avoidance, and self-transcendence, and the highest levels in self-directedness and cooperativeness.
Discussion and conclusions
This study sheds light on the clinical heterogeneity of women suffering from GD. Identifying the differing features of women with GD is vital to developing prevention programs and personalized treatment protocols for this overlooked population.
