Clinical characteristics of veterans with gambling disorders seeking pain treatment

To examine the relationships between gambling disorder, pain, and suicide attempts among US military veterans using Veterans Health Administration (VHA) pain-related services.

Retrospective cohort analysis of 221,817 veterans using pain services was included in the analysis. First, differences in sociodemographic and clinical characteristics (i.e., psychiatric comorbidities and pain-related variables) were analyzed according to gambling disorder. Second, we performed logistic regression analyses to assess the association between gambling disorder and suicide attempts.

Female sex, depressive, alcohol, drug and tobacco use disorders are positively associated with gambling disorders, while severe pain score is negatively associated with gambling disorders. Logistic regression analysis showed that gambling disorder diagnosis was associated suicide attempt in veterans who received a visit for pain in VHA in the past year.

Our findings suggest that gambling disorder in female veterans and suicide attempts in veterans with gambling disorder should not be underestimated and warrants further consideration. Moreover, the result that veterans with severe pain may be less likely to have a diagnosis of gambling disorder needs to be confirmed.