Abstract
Protective behavioural strategies represent a harm reduction approach that individual gamblers can implement to reduce harm associated with gambling. This review evaluated the empirical evidence to date on the effectiveness of protective behavioural strategies in gambling. The strategies reviewed encompass four broad categories: self-exclusion (a requested ban from a gambling venue), time limit setting, monetary limit setting, and cashless, card-based gambling programs. There were also five strategies that did not fall into one of these categories. The amount of evidence available was limited for the majority of strategies; the evidence for self-exclusion was the most promising, but results were inconsistent across studies. The quality of the evidence was also low, and there were numerous limitations that affect the generalizability of results and the inferences that can be made. For these reasons, few evidence-based recommendations for clinicians could be made at this time. Finally, this review provides rationale and recommendations for additional research in protective behavioural strategies in the gambling context.
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Notes
An asterisk was utilized to include any word that began with the search term, but ended with a variety of suffixes. For example, minimi* would include minimization, minimizing, etc.
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Acknowledgements
Portions of this document have been adapted from the final report submitted to GREO in October of 2015. Some of the findings reported here were also presented at the annual conference of the National Center for Responsible Gaming in Las Vegas, NV in September of 2015. Dr. Mushquash is a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Mental Health and Addiction, and his involvement in this project is partially supported by the Canada Research Chairs program.
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Alexandra Drawson, Jessica Tanner, Christopher Mushquash, and Dwight Mazmanian have received research funding from Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (GREO) through a State of the Evidence, Knowledge, Translation, and Exchange Grant. Alexandra Drawson and Jessica Tanner have also received Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (GREO) Student Conference. Aislin Mushquash declares no conflict of interest. None of the authors have any other actual or potential conflicts of interest to declare with respect to the content of this review.
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Jessica Tanner has received funding through a Gambling Research Exchange Ontario (GREO) Student Fellowship in Knowledge Translation and Exchange. Christopher Mushquash is a Canada Research Chair in Indigenous Mental Health and Addiction, and his involvement in this project is partially supported by the Canada Research Chairs program.
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Drawson, A.S., Tanner, J., Mushquash, C.J. et al. The Use of Protective Behavioural Strategies in Gambling: a Systematic Review. Int J Ment Health Addiction 15, 1302–1319 (2017). https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-017-9754-y
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s11469-017-9754-y