Short CommunicationThe relationship between gambling attitudes, involvement, and problems in adolescence: Examining the moderating role of coping strategies and parenting styles
Introduction
Although most gambling activities are legally restricted to adults in most jurisdictions, adolescent gambling is not uncommon. Internationally, past year adolescent gambling participation rates (in the years 2000–2009) ranged from 21 to 90%, with most estimates exceeding 60% (Volberg, Gupta, Griffiths, Olason, & Delfabbro, 2010). Across this same time period, past year gambling problems were reported by 0.8% to 6.0% of adolescents, which is substantially higher than the prevalence reported by adults (Volberg et al., 2010). This is of concern given that adults with gambling problems begin gambling much earlier than those without gambling problems (Burge et al., 2006, Kessler et al., 2008). In line with this, adolescent problem gambling has been associated with a range of negative consequences across interpersonal, familial, economic, psychological and legal domains (Blinn-Pike, Worthy, & Jonkman, 2010).
Understanding factors associated with the development or maintenance of adolescent gambling problems has implications for prevention and treatment. There is now a substantial literature showing that positive attitudes towards gambling are associated with higher rates of gambling involvement (e.g., Jackson, Dowling, Thomas, Bond, and Patton (2008); Strong, Daughters, Lejuez, and Breen (2004)) and problem gambling (e.g., Delfabbro, Lambos, King, and Puglies (2009); Derevensky, Sklar, Gupta, and Messerlian (2010)). Another common finding is that gambling involvement itself is associated with more severe gambling problems among adolescents (e.g., Chalmers and Willoughby (2006); Moore and Ohtsuka (2000)). Biopsychosocial models, such as that proposed by Casey et al. (2011), theorize that gambling involvement mediates the link between putative risk factors and gambling problems.
In contrast, little is known about factors that protect against the development of gambling problems. Two factors with the potential to moderate the relationship between gambling involvement and gambling problems are coping strategies and parenting styles. There is evidence from cross-sectional studies that problem gambling adolescents employ less effective coping skills, such as avoidance-oriented strategies and less task-oriented strategies, than their non-problem gambling peers (Bergevin et al., 2006, Dickson et al., 2008). Moreover, it has been argued that gambling behavior can itself be a maladaptive coping response that represents an effort to regulate unpleasant emotional experiences (Francis et al., 2014, Gupta and Derevensky, 2000). In contrast, there is evidence from longitudinal research that adaptive stress/coping does not predict the development of problem gambling in young adults (Scholes-Balog, Hemphill, Dowling, & Toumbourou, 2014). Other cross-sectional research has identified that adolescent problem gambling is associated with parenting styles, including low levels of trust in parents, lack of communication, and poor disciplinary practices (Magoon and Ingersoll, 2006, Vachon et al., 2004). The association between parental monitoring or supervision and gambling problems remain unclear, with inconsistent findings related to this variable in cross-sectional (Magoon and Ingersoll, 2006, Vachon et al., 2004) and longitudinal (Lee et al., 2014, Wanner et al., 2009) studies.
The relationships between gambling attitudes, coping strategies, parenting styles, gambling involvement, and gambling problems were examined among a contemporary sample of Australian high school students. It was hypothesized that greater positive attitudes towards gambling would be positively associated with gambling problems, and that this relationship would be mediated by gambling involvement. It was also predicted that problem focused coping, seeking support from others to cope, positive parenting, and parental involvement would buffer the relationship between gambling involvement and problems, and that non-productive coping and inconsistent parental discipline would exacerbate this relationship.
Section snippets
Participants and procedure
The sample comprised 612 students (240 males, 371 females, 1 unreported) aged between 12 and 18 years (M = 16.0, SD = 1.3, median = 16.0) attending 17 (15 metropolitan) high schools across Victoria, a South Eastern state of Australia (where the legal gambling age is 18 years). Almost one quarter spoke both English and another language at home. The majority lived with both parents and had one or two siblings. Ethical approval was obtained from all involved education departments and schools, as well as
Descriptive statistics
Over two-thirds (67.5%) of participants had gambled in the past year (males 68.0%; females 67.5%). The most common gambling activities were instant scratch tickets/lotteries (47.4%), private card games (49.8%), and off-course horse or dog racing (20.6%). Using the DSM-IV-MR-J, 95.0% were classified as non-problem gamblers (scores of 0), 4.4% were classified as at-risk gamblers (scores of 2 or 3), and 0.7% were classified as problem gamblers (scores of 4 or more).
Regression analyses
Table 1 reveals that there were
Discussion
While many factors have been found to be associated with adolescent gambling, the interactions between them and how they may predict the presence of problem gambling symptoms or problem gambling severity remains unclear. The current study employed advanced multivariate statistics to extend our understanding of the role of gambling attitudes, coping strategies, and parenting styles in the participation in gambling activities, the development of gambling problems, and the severity of problem
Role of funding sources
This manuscript involved secondary data analysis from the Children at Risk for Developing Gambling Problems project funded by Gambling Research Australia (GRA; Dowling, Jackson, Thomas, & Frydenberg, 2010). Author MY is supported by a fellowship award from the National Health and Medical Research Council of Australia (#1021973). The Problem Gambling Research and Treatment Centre, at which Authors ND and AJ were employed at the time of data collection, was funded by the Victorian Responsible
Contributors
Author RD conducted the literature review, prepared the secondary data file for analyses, conducted the statistical analyses, and prepared the first draft of the manuscript for publication. Author ND was a chief investigator on the research grant, formulated the secondary research questions, provided research staff and student supervision, and supervised the data collection. Author GY prepared the secondary file for data analysis and supervised the statistical analyses. Authors PH and MY
Conflict of interest
All authors declare that they have no conflicts of interest.
Acknowledgements
The authors would like to thank Ms Julia Geraghty for her role in the primary study data collection.
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