Psychological correlates of comorbid gambling in psychiatric outpatients: a pilot study

This study compared psychiatric outpatients with and without lifetime gambling problems on clinical disorder and personality disorder scales, and the relationship of these scales with involvement in gambling. One hundred and sixty-two adults (females = 112) in an urban, outpatient psychiatric setting completed the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS; Lesieur, H. R., Blume, S. B. (1987). The south oaks gambling screen (SOGS): a new instrument for the identification of pathological gamblers. Am. J. Psychiatry 144(9):1184-1188) and the Millon Clinical Multiaxial Inventory-II (MCMI-II; Millon, T. (1987). Manual for the MCMI-II: 2nd Edition. Minneapolis, MN: National Computer Systems, Inc.) after their initial psychiatric evaluation in 1999. Avoidant and compulsive personality features were significantly related to gambling problem status. The Self-Defeating and Dysthymic Disorder scales were positively associated with gambling involvement. The Alcohol Dependence scale was predictive of gambling involvement for males only. Findings are somewhat consistent with the literature examining comorbidity in pathological gamblers seeking treatment, although no association was found with antisocial personality disorder.