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Offspring of Parents with Gambling Problems: Adjustment Problems and Explanatory Mechanisms

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Abstract

We compared offspring of problem gamblers (n = 42) to offspring of parents without gambling problems (n = 100) to see (1) whether the two groups differed with respect to depressive feelings and conduct/antisociality problems and (2) whether ineffective parenting or the offspring’s own gambling problems played a mediating role in this context. Participants were drawn from a relatively large community-based study (N = 1,872). Parents rated their own gambling and other mental health problems when their children were in mid-adolescence. The children’s self-reports on depressive feelings and conduct/antisociality problems were assessed at two points in time: by mid-adolescence and again by early adulthood. Results showed that children of parents with gambling problems reported more depressive feelings and more conduct problems by mid-adolescence than children of parents without gambling problems. Children of problem gamblers also experienced an increase in their depressive symptoms from mid-adolescence to early adulthood. Importantly, ineffective parenting, but not children’s gambling problems, mediated almost all the links between parental problem gambling and children’s adjustment problems. These results add to a very small data base showing that children of problem gamblers are at risk for a variety of adjustment problems.

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Notes

  1. All Cronbach’s alpha coefficients presented are based on the current study participants (N = 142), not on the overall sample.

  2. The majority of problem parents and parents of controls (63%) had no additional mental health problems and thus skewness (1.75) and kurtosis (3.04) of this ‘mental health problems’ variable were rather large. Log transformation of parents’ mental health improved the distributional characteristics of this variable (skewness = 1.14 and kurtosis = 0.11). Analyses using either the untransformed or the log transformed variable yielded very similar results. We thus report the results of the analyses that used the untransformed variable.

  3. Regarding age 16 depressive symptoms, conduct problems and gambling problems, analyses using either the untransformed or the inversely transformed variables yielded very similar results. We thus report the results of the analyses that controlled for the untransformed variables.

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Acknowledgments

This research was made possible by a grant from the Fonds Québécois de Recherche sur la Société et la Culture (FQRSC) and the Quebec Ministry of Health and Social Services.

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Authors and Affiliations

  1. Research Unit on Children’s Psychosocial Maladjustment, University of Montreal, 3050 Edouard-Montpetit, Montreal, QC, Canada, H3T 1J7

    Frank Vitaro, Brigitte Wanner & Richard E. Tremblay

  2. University of Quebec in Montreal, Montreal, QC, Canada

    Mara Brendgen

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  1. Frank Vitaro
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  2. Brigitte Wanner
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  3. Mara Brendgen
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  4. Richard E. Tremblay
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Correspondence to Frank Vitaro.

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Vitaro, F., Wanner, B., Brendgen, M. et al. Offspring of Parents with Gambling Problems: Adjustment Problems and Explanatory Mechanisms. J Gambl Stud 24, 535–553 (2008). https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-008-9096-6

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  • DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-008-9096-6

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