Typologies of young pathological gamblers based on sociodemographic and clinical characteristics

Objective: The aim of this study is to explore empirical clusters within the population of young Spanish individuals attending outpatient pathological gambling treatment.

Method: The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), the Symptom Checklist (SCL-90-R), the Temperament and Character Inventory-R (TCI-R) and other clinical and psychopathological measures were administered to 154 patients (between 17 and 25 years old). The two-step cluster analysis explored the presence of empirical heterogeneous groups based on clinical and socio-demographic characteristics.

Results: Three clusters of young pathological gambling patients emerged. Type I showed less psychopathology and more functional personality traits. Type II showed a profile characterized by major emotional distress, shame, immaturity, hostility and negative feelings. Type III showed the most severe psychopathological profile and most psychopathological disturbances and schizotypal traits.

Conclusions: These results suggest that three distinct endophenotypes exist, and that environmental factors have a stronger influence in the first, while in the second and third, individual factors related to deficits of emotional regulation stand out.