Socio-demographic profile and psychiatric comorbidity of subjects with pathological gambling.
BACKGROUND
Pathological gambling is defined as the failure to resist the impulse to gamble despite disruption to personal, family and vocational life. It appears to be highly comorbid with psychiatric disorders. This study aims to describe the socio-demographic profile and comorbidity of 40 pathological gamblers compared to controls.


METHODS
Questionnaires were administered to 40 cases (90% male, mean age = 38.3, SD = 10.0) scoring 5 or more in the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS) and verified to be pathological gamblers based on DSM-IV criteria and 40 age-and-gender-matched controls.


RESULTS
Study results showed that the prevalence of lifetime DSM-IV diagnoses were significantly different between cases and controls (chi(2) = 16.4, P <0.001), with 67.5% of the cases and 22.5% of the controls meeting the criteria, respectively. Eighty percent of the cases had at least one personality disorder compared to 45% in the control (chi(2) = 10.5, P <0.005). The common lifetime disorders observed in the cases were substance abuse disorder and anxiety while common personality disorders were obsessive-compulsive, avoidant and paranoid.


CONCLUSIONS
This study highlights the high rates of comorbidity in a largely Chinese sample in an Asian setting and the importance of assessing pathological gamblers for comorbidities.
Addiction Medicine Department, Institute of Mental Health, Buangkok Green Medical Park, Singapore.
Munidasa
M
Winslow
Mythily
M
Subramaniam
Shijia
S
Qiu
Arthur
A
Lee
D000328:Adult; D001208:Asia / Q000208:ethnology; D015897:Comorbidity; D003710:Demography; D005260:Female; D005715:Gambling / Q000523:psychology*; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D001523:Mental Disorders / Q000453:epidemiology* / Q000208:ethnology; D008875:Middle Aged