Health and psychosocial correlates of disordered gambling in older adults.
OBJECTIVE
A number of regional prevalence studies suggest that disordered gambling is a clinically significant problem among older adults. However, little research has evaluated whether older adults with a gambling disorder experience increased health, psychiatric, substance use, and social problems as compared with older adults without a gambling disorder.


METHODS
A group of 48 older-adult disordered gamblers and 48 older adult non/infrequent gamblers, matched by age, sex, race, and recruitment site, completed the Addiction Severity Index (ASI), Brief Symptom Inventory (BSI), and Short Form-36 Health Survey (SF-36). Multivariate general-linear models evaluated between-group differences on these indices.


RESULTS
Compared with non/infrequent gamblers, disordered gamblers reported increased severity of medical, family/social, psychiatric, and alcohol problems on the ASI. They also scored higher on depression, anxiety, paranoid ideation, and psychoticism subscales of the BSI, and lower on vitality, physical functioning, role-physical, general health, and social functioning subscales of the SF-36.


CONCLUSIONS
These results suggest that older adults with a gambling disorder experience increased severity of health and psychosocial problems, compared with older adult non/infrequent gamblers matched by age, sex, race, and recruitment site.
Pietrzak
Robert H
RH
Dept. of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut Health Center, 263 Farmington Avenue, Farmington, CT 06030-3944, USA.
Molina
Cheryl A
CA
Ladd
George T
GT
Kerins
Gerard J
GJ
Petry
Nancy M
NM
D000368:Aged; D003710:Demography; D007174:Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology*; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000523:psychology*; D006304:Health Status; D006306:Health Surveys; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology; D008875:Middle Aged; D011795:Surveys and Questionnaires