Ronzitti Silvia, Soldini Emiliano, Smith Neil, Clerici Massimo, Bowden-Jones Henrietta
NPGC, National Problem Gambling Clinic, Central North West London NHS Foundation Trust, London, UK.
Department of Medicine and Surgery, University of Milano-Bicocca, Monza, Italy.
J Gambl Stud. 2017 Dec;33(4):1277-1292. doi: 10.1007/s10899-017-9686-2.
The aim of this study was to identify predictors of treatment dropout in a sample of gamblers attending a specialist clinic for gambling disorder. We analysed data on 846 treatment-seeking pathological gamblers. Firstly, we investigated differences in socio-demographic and clinical variables between treatment completers and pre-treatment dropouts, as well as between treatment completers and during-treatment dropouts. Subsequently, variables were entered into a multinomial logistic regression model to identify significant predictors of pre-treatment and in-treatment dropout. Overall, 44.8% of clients did not complete the treatment: 27.4% dropped out before starting it, while 17.4% dropped out during the treatment. Younger age and use of drugs were associated with pre-treatment dropout, while family history of gambling disorder, a lower PGSI score, and being a smoker were related with in-treatment dropout. Our findings suggest that pre-treatment dropouts differ from in-treatment dropouts, and, thus, further research will benefit from considering these groups separately. In addition, this newly gained knowledge will also be helpful in increasing treatment retention in specific subgroups of problem gamblers.
本研究的目的是在一家专门治疗赌博障碍的诊所中，确定寻求治疗的赌徒样本中治疗中断的预测因素。我们分析了846名寻求治疗的病态赌徒的数据。首先，我们调查了治疗完成者与治疗前退出者之间，以及治疗完成者与治疗期间退出者之间在社会人口统计学和临床变量方面的差异。随后，将变量纳入多项逻辑回归模型，以确定治疗前和治疗期间退出的显著预测因素。总体而言，44.8%的客户未完成治疗：27.4%在开始治疗前退出，而17.4%在治疗期间退出。年龄较小和使用药物与治疗前退出有关，而赌博障碍家族史、较低的PGSI评分以及吸烟与治疗期间退出有关。我们的研究结果表明，治疗前退出者与治疗期间退出者不同，因此，进一步的研究将受益于分别考虑这些群体。此外，这一新获得的知识也将有助于提高问题赌徒特定亚组的治疗保留率。
