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Risk and protective factors for the development of gambling-related harms and problems among Australian sexual minority men

BACKGROUND: Sexual minority men (SMM) often experience stressful social environments dominated by stigma and discrimination. SMM are typically more likely than heterosexual men to engage in certain risky behaviours such as problem gambling. This study aimed to compare gambling behaviour among SMM an...

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Autores principales: Bush, Rachel, Russell, Alex M. T., Staiger, Petra K., Waling, Andrea, Dowling, Nicki A.
Formato: Online Artículo Texto
Lenguaje:English
Publicado: BioMed Central 2021
Materias:
Acceso en línea:https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8240316/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34187562
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-021-00597-4
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author Bush, Rachel
Russell, Alex M. T.
Staiger, Petra K.
Waling, Andrea
Dowling, Nicki A.
author_facet Bush, Rachel
Russell, Alex M. T.
Staiger, Petra K.
Waling, Andrea
Dowling, Nicki A.
author_sort Bush, Rachel
collection PubMed
description BACKGROUND: Sexual minority men (SMM) often experience stressful social environments dominated by stigma and discrimination. SMM are typically more likely than heterosexual men to engage in certain risky behaviours such as problem gambling. This study aimed to compare gambling behaviour among SMM and examine potential risk factors (erroneous gambling cognitions, gambling outcome expectancies, hazardous alcohol use, impulsivity, and psychological distress; as well as perceived stigma and discrimination for the SMM participants) and potential protective factors (resilience, social support, and community connectedness) for problem gambling severity and gambling-related harms among SMM living in Australia. METHODS: An online survey, with an over-representation of SMM participants and problem, moderate-risk, and low-risk gamblers, was completed by 101 SMM (mean age = 28.5) and 207 heterosexual men (mean age = 26.4). RESULTS: SMM were found to have significantly lower levels of problem gambling severity compared with heterosexual men, and report significantly lower gambling participation, frequencies and expenditure on any gambling activity, casino table games, horse racing/greyhound betting, sports betting, and keno. However, in the SMM group, 38.3% were classified in the problem gambling category of the Problem Gambling Severity Index and 27.6% were classified in the moderate-risk gambling category. There were no significant differences between groups in gambling-related harms. Multiple regression analyses revealed that problem gambling severity and related harms were independently predicted by higher levels of impulsivity and erroneous gambling cognitions for both groups. CONCLUSIONS: Lower frequency of gambling behaviours among SMM and similar risk factors predicting problem gambling severity/harms for both groups suggests that problem gambling is not pronounced among SMM. This study adds new evidence to the gambling literature which can be used as comparative benchmarks for future research. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40359-021-00597-4.
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spelling pubmed-82403162021-06-30 Risk and protective factors for the development of gambling-related harms and problems among Australian sexual minority men Bush, Rachel Russell, Alex M. T. Staiger, Petra K. Waling, Andrea Dowling, Nicki A. BMC Psychol Research Article BACKGROUND: Sexual minority men (SMM) often experience stressful social environments dominated by stigma and discrimination. SMM are typically more likely than heterosexual men to engage in certain risky behaviours such as problem gambling. This study aimed to compare gambling behaviour among SMM and examine potential risk factors (erroneous gambling cognitions, gambling outcome expectancies, hazardous alcohol use, impulsivity, and psychological distress; as well as perceived stigma and discrimination for the SMM participants) and potential protective factors (resilience, social support, and community connectedness) for problem gambling severity and gambling-related harms among SMM living in Australia. METHODS: An online survey, with an over-representation of SMM participants and problem, moderate-risk, and low-risk gamblers, was completed by 101 SMM (mean age = 28.5) and 207 heterosexual men (mean age = 26.4). RESULTS: SMM were found to have significantly lower levels of problem gambling severity compared with heterosexual men, and report significantly lower gambling participation, frequencies and expenditure on any gambling activity, casino table games, horse racing/greyhound betting, sports betting, and keno. However, in the SMM group, 38.3% were classified in the problem gambling category of the Problem Gambling Severity Index and 27.6% were classified in the moderate-risk gambling category. There were no significant differences between groups in gambling-related harms. Multiple regression analyses revealed that problem gambling severity and related harms were independently predicted by higher levels of impulsivity and erroneous gambling cognitions for both groups. CONCLUSIONS: Lower frequency of gambling behaviours among SMM and similar risk factors predicting problem gambling severity/harms for both groups suggests that problem gambling is not pronounced among SMM. This study adds new evidence to the gambling literature which can be used as comparative benchmarks for future research. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s40359-021-00597-4. BioMed Central 2021-06-29 /pmc/articles/PMC8240316/ /pubmed/34187562 http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-021-00597-4 Text en © The Author(s) 2021 https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/Open AccessThis article is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution 4.0 International License, which permits use, sharing, adaptation, distribution and reproduction in any medium or format, as long as you give appropriate credit to the original author(s) and the source, provide a link to the Creative Commons licence, and indicate if changes were made. The images or other third party material in this article are included in the article's Creative Commons licence, unless indicated otherwise in a credit line to the material. If material is not included in the article's Creative Commons licence and your intended use is not permitted by statutory regulation or exceeds the permitted use, you will need to obtain permission directly from the copyright holder. To view a copy of this licence, visit http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/) . The Creative Commons Public Domain Dedication waiver (http://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/ (https://creativecommons.org/publicdomain/zero/1.0/) ) applies to the data made available in this article, unless otherwise stated in a credit line to the data.
spellingShingle Research Article
Bush, Rachel
Russell, Alex M. T.
Staiger, Petra K.
Waling, Andrea
Dowling, Nicki A.
Risk and protective factors for the development of gambling-related harms and problems among Australian sexual minority men
title Risk and protective factors for the development of gambling-related harms and problems among Australian sexual minority men
title_full Risk and protective factors for the development of gambling-related harms and problems among Australian sexual minority men
title_fullStr Risk and protective factors for the development of gambling-related harms and problems among Australian sexual minority men
title_full_unstemmed Risk and protective factors for the development of gambling-related harms and problems among Australian sexual minority men
title_short Risk and protective factors for the development of gambling-related harms and problems among Australian sexual minority men
title_sort risk and protective factors for the development of gambling-related harms and problems among australian sexual minority men
topic Research Article
url https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pmc/articles/PMC8240316/
https://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/34187562
http://dx.doi.org/10.1186/s40359-021-00597-4
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