Murch W Spencer, Scheurich Rebecca, Monson Eva, French Martin, Kairouz Sylvia
Department of Psychology, University of Calgary, 2500 University Drive NW, Calgary, T2N 1N4, Canada.
Département des Sciences de la santé communautaire, Université de Sherbrooke - Longueuil, Longueuil, QC, Canada.
J Gambl Stud. 2025 May 8. doi: 10.1007/s10899-025-10386-y.
The Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) is a popular tool for assessing past-year problems related to gambling. Multiple categorization schemes have been proposed, with scores 3-7 variously interpreted as reflecting a 'moderate' degree of problems. Crucially, it is possible to land in this Moderate-risk category by reporting one or two persistent problems, or up to seven problems that occur more sporadically. Given that DSM-V gambling disorder may occur either persistently or episodically, this confounding of problems' occurrence and their frequency necessitates the development of a method for delineating the PGSI's Moderate-risk category. We propose a variance clustering approach for understanding Moderate-risk cases on the PGSI. Using 3,868 Moderate-risk cases from an existing database of 18,494 Canadian online gamblers, we use K-means clustering to identify distinct subgroups within the variances of collected PGSI surveys. We find that three clusters (which correspond to lower [61.83%], higher [8.85%], and intermediate [29.32%] variance cases) are not equal in size, and are separated at cutoffs equal to 0.40 and 0.81. These clusters differ in terms of the number of PGSI items endorsed, and multiple dimensions of participants' sociodemographic background. These variance boundaries, and the case clusters they separate, are easy to compute and offer useful context that further informs summed survey scores falling in the Moderate-risk category of the PGSI. Additional applications, and avenues for further research are discussed.
问题赌博严重程度指数（PGSI）是一种用于评估过去一年与赌博相关问题的常用工具。已经提出了多种分类方案，分数3 - 7被不同地解释为反映“中度”问题程度。至关重要的是，通过报告一两个持续性问题，或者多达七个偶尔出现的问题，都有可能处于这个中度风险类别。鉴于《精神疾病诊断与统计手册》第五版（DSM - V）中的赌博障碍可能持续出现或间歇性出现，问题发生情况及其频率的这种混淆使得有必要开发一种方法来界定PGSI的中度风险类别。我们提出一种方差聚类方法来理解PGSI上的中度风险案例。利用来自18494名加拿大在线赌徒的现有数据库中的3868个中度风险案例，我们使用K均值聚类来识别收集到的PGSI调查方差内的不同亚组。我们发现三个聚类（分别对应较低方差案例[61.83%]、较高方差案例[8.85%]和中等方差案例[29.32%]）大小不等，在等于0.40和0.81的临界值处分开。这些聚类在认可的PGSI项目数量以及参与者社会人口背景的多个维度方面存在差异。这些方差边界以及它们所分隔的案例聚类易于计算，并提供了有用的背景信息，进一步为落在PGSI中度风险类别中的汇总调查分数提供参考。还讨论了其他应用以及进一步研究的途径。
