Assessing the reliability of the Gambling Functional Assessment: Revised

Dixon and Johnson (Anal Gambl Behav 1: 44-49, 2007) proposed the Gambling Functional Assessment as a tool to identify the consequences maintaining the respondent's gambling behavior, but subsequent studies on its psychometric properties suggested that it could use improvement. The present study investigated the internal consistency of the Gambling Functional Assessment--Revised using the responses of 1,060 undergraduate students. Temporal reliability was assessed by a second administration of the measure four (n = 87) or twelve (n = 98) weeks after the first administration. Temporal reliability was also compared to the South Oaks Gambling Screen (Lesieur and Blume in Am J Psychiatry 144: 1184-1188, 1987), which was also administered at both time points. Internal consistency measures were good to excellent, even when potential non-gamblers were excluded from the analyses. Temporal stability was also very good, with the possible exception of the consequence of "escape" at 12 weeks. The Gambling Functional Assessment--Revised represents a potentially useful tool for researchers and therapists interested in why respondents are gambling.