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Smoking and Gambling Disorder: Does Tobacco Use Influence Treatment Outcome?

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Abstract

The purpose of this study was to verify whether tobacco use influenced treatment outcome in a population of treatment seeking individuals with gambling disorder. Gambling disorder is defined as persistent and maladaptive gambling behaviour which meets four or more outlined criteria in the DSM-5. Tobacco use is the most frequent comorbidity with gambling disorder. A total of 676 treatment seeking individuals with gambling disorder were assessed at the National Problem Gambling Clinic in London. We analysed differences in socio-demographic, clinical and gambling variables between smokers and non-smokers and the relation between smoking behaviour and treatment completion and outcome. 46.4 % (314) of our sample were daily tobacco users and were significantly younger, less likely to be in a stable relationship, more likely to be unemployed and have a lower education level. They were also significantly more likely to score higher on the AUDIT-C score and were significantly more likely to have used drugs in the last 30 days. There was no significant difference in PGSI score between smokers and non-smokers. We found that tobacco smokers did not have higher PGSI scores than non-smokers. Moreover, there was no significant difference between tobacco users and nonusers in terms of treatment completion and treatment outcome.

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Conflict of interest

The authors declare that they have no conflict of interest.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. NPGC, National Problem Gambling Clinic, Central North West London NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK

    Silvia Ronzitti, Vittorio Lutri, Stephanie Meleck, Neil Smith & Henrietta Bowden-Jones

  2. Department of Surgery and Translational Medicine, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza, Italy

    Silvia Ronzitti & Vittorio Lutri

  3. Department of Medicine, Imperial College London, London, UK

    Henrietta Bowden-Jones

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  1. Silvia Ronzitti
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  2. Vittorio Lutri
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Correspondence to Silvia Ronzitti.

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Ronzitti, S., Lutri, V., Meleck, S. et al. Smoking and Gambling Disorder: Does Tobacco Use Influence Treatment Outcome?. J Gambl Stud 31, 1107–1117 (2015). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-015-9533-2

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-015-9533-2

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