Skip to main content

icrg_png_214_65.png

  • Home
  • About ICRG
    • Leadership
    • History
    • ICRG Staff
    • Employment Opportunities
    • Funding
    • Annual Reports
  • Research Center
    • Apply for ICRG Funding
    • Grant Review Criteria
    • Key Research Findings
    • ICRG-Funded Research
    • Research Library
    • Scientific Achievement Awards
  • Education
    • Conference
    • Continuing Education Hours
    • Webinars
    • Treatment Provider Workshops
    • College and Youth Gambling Programs
  • Discovery Project
  • Resources
    • Gambling and Health Series
    • Gambling and Public Health: A Guide for Policymakers
    • The WAGER
    • Monographs
    • Videos
    • Brief Biosocial Gambling Screen
    • Talking with Children About Gambling
    • White Papers
    • Helpful Links
  • Press Room
    • Press Releases
    • News Alerts
    • Media Kit
    • Testimony
  • Blog

You are here

Home » Blog

New Research Tests Treatments for College Students with Gambling Disorders

by: NCRG staff | Dec 5, 2012

For college students, fall can be a time where they place bets on college football games and arrange their lineup in their fantasy football leagues. Researchers have found that about 75 percent of college students have gambled in the past year and about 6 percent have experienced problems with their gambling (Barnes, Welte, Hoffman, & Tidwell, 2010).  One recent study has started to address this issue by putting to the test two promising treatment methods for college students experiencing gambling problems in a randomized controlled trial (RCT) (Larimer et al., 2011).

This study is of special interest to us at the NCRG because we recently funded one of the researchers to develop an online version of a personalized feedback intervention, one of the treatments tested in this article, for our web-based resource about gambling on college campuses: www.CollegeGambling.org. 

The study, published recently in the journal Addiction, randomly assigned 147 students who reported having at least three symptoms of gambling disorders to one of three groups. Two of the groups received treatment, with the first group attending a 60 to 90 minute in-person personalized feedback intervention (PFI). PFIs are based on the theory that most people with gambling problems think that the general public gambles as much as they do (this belief is called “perception of gambling frequency”) and when they find out that they gamble much more than most they will curb their behavior to be more in line with the average.

The second treatment group attended four to six one-hour group sessions of a cognitive behavioral intervention (CBI). The CBI gave information about topics such as relapse prevention and illusions of control (a commonly held overconfidence in one’s ability to control event outcomes), while also teaching skills like coping with triggers and assertiveness. The third group was an assessment-only control (AOC), meaning that they received no treatment but were assessed at the same times and in the same ways as the treatment groups.

The researchers found that at the six-month follow-up, subjects in both treatment groups reported significantly reducing their gambling, having fewer gambling related symptoms, and experiencing fewer gambling related negative consequences. Additionally, the PFI group experienced reduced perceptions of gambling frequency norms and the CBI group experienced reduced illusions of control. The researchers concluded that both interventions might be helpful in reducing disordered gambling among college students.    

To find out more about this study, visit the journal’s website. For more information about college gambling, visit CollegeGambling.org. Also remember to share any thoughts or questions in the Comments section below.

References

Barnes, G. M., Welte, J. W., Hoffman, J. H., & Tidwell, M.-C. O. (2010). Comparisons of gambling and alcohol use among college students and noncollege young people in the United States. Journal of American College Health: J of ACH, 58(5), 443–452. doi:10.1080/07448480903540499

Larimer, M. E., Neighbors, C., Lostutter, T. W., Whiteside, U., Cronce, J. M., Kaysen, D., & Walker, D. D. (2011). Brief Motivational Feedback and Cognitive Behavioral Interventions for Prevention of Disordered Gambling: A Randomized Clinical Trial. Addiction (Abingdon, England). doi:10.1111/j.1360-0443.2011.03776.x

Read More »
Tags:
  • college students
  • collegegambling.org
  • gambling disorders
  • research
  • responsible gaming

Share This

Categories

  • Book Reviews
  • Conference on Gambling and Addiction
  • Continuing Education Opportunities
  • ICRG News
  • In the News
  • Interviews
  • Issues & Insights
  • Research Update
  • Responsible Gaming

Archive

  • December 2020  (1)
  • October 2020  (1)
  • September 2020  (1)
  • April 2020  (1)
  • February 2020  (2)
  • August 2019  (1)
  • April 2019  (1)
  • March 2019  (2)
  • January 2019  (1)
  • May 2018  (1)
more

Connect With Us

Follow us on Facebook Follow us on Twitter Follow Us on Slideshare Follow us on YouTube 

18 years of benefiting NCRG

21 years of benefiting the NCRG

Visit the CollegeGambling Webiste

Visit CollegeGambling.org

icrgtwitterlogo400px_1.jpg

 

© 2020 International Center for Responsible Gaming

Headquarters
900 Cummings Center
Suite 321-U
Beverly, MA 01915
Tel: 978-338-6610
Fax: 978-552-8452

E-mail: info@icrg.org

Privacy Policy | Terms of Use