No abstract

The aim of this study was to measure the reliability, validity, and classification accuracy of a Spanish translation of a measure of DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for Pathological Gambling (PG). Participants were 263 male and 23 female patients seeking treatment for PG and a matched non-psychiatric control sample of 259 men and 24 women. A Spanish translation of a 19-item measure of DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for PG (Stinchfield 2003) was administered along with other validity measures. The DSM-IV diagnostic criteria were found to be internally consistent with a coefficient alpha of .95 in the combined sample. Evidence of satisfactory convergent validity included moderate to high correlations with other measures of problem gambling. Using the standard DSM-IV cut-score of five, the ten criteria were found to yield satisfactory classification accuracy results with a high hit rate (.95), high sensitivity (.92), high specificity (.99), low false positive (.01), and low false negative rate (.08). Lowering the cut score to four resulted in modest improvements in classification accuracy and reduced the false negative rate from .08 to .05. The Spanish translation of a measure of DSM-IV diagnostic criteria for PG demonstrated satisfactory psychometric properties and a cut score of four improved diagnostic precision.

Objective:to examine short and middle-term effectiveness of a group cognitive-behavioral intervention (CBT) in pathological gambling (PG) and to analyze predictors of therapy outcome.Method:Two hundred and ninety PG patients consecutively admitted to our Unit participated in the current study. All participants were diagnosed according to DSM-IV-criteria. Manualized outpatient group CBT [16 weekly sessions] was given. Specific assessment before and after the therapy and at 1, 3 and 6 months follow-up was conducted. Logistic regression analyses and survival analysis were applied.Results:outpatient group CBT was effective with abstinence rates by the end of therapy of 76.1%, and 81.5% at 6 months follow-up. The dropout rate during treatment decreased significantly after the fifth treatment session. Psychopathological distress (p = 0.040) and obsessive-compulsive symptoms were identified as factors predicting relapses and drop-outs respectively.Conclusions:our findings suggest that group CBT is effective for treating PG individuals. Several psychopathological and personality traits were identified as outcome predictors.

Background: Impairments in self-regulatory behaviour reflect a deficit in executive functioning and decision-making, as well as higher levels of self-reported impulsivity, and may be involved in the development and maintenance of addictive disorders. We sought to explore the association between self-reported impulsivity and neurocognitive measures, and their association with treatment outcome in pathologic gambling. Methods: We assessed patients with pathologic gambling using executive functioning and decision -making tests and self-report measures of impulsivity. Patients underwent cognitive-behavioural therapy (CBT) for pathologic gambling. Results: We included 88 patients (8% women) in our study. High self-reported extravagance was associated with poor performance in the Iowa Gambling Task (IGT)-ABCD version. High impulsiveness, low disorderliness, high exploratory excitability (trend), poor backward block span and poor IGT-EFGH scores (trend) predicted dropout. We observed no self-reported or neurocognitive predictors of relapse or number of treatment sessions attended. Limitations: Most participants were slot-machine gamblers seeking treatment. No follow-up data and no control group were included in the study. The missing sample (i.e., individuals who were recruited and assessed in the pretreatment stage but who chose not to begin treatment) had higher extravagance scores than the final sample. Conclusion: Neurocognitive reward sensitivity was related to self-reported overspending behaviour. Self-regulatory impairments (especially rash impulsiveness and punishment sensitivity) and executive dysfunction predicted only dropout of CBT in participants with pathologic gambling. Different neurocognitive processes and personality traits might mediate treatment response to psychological therapy of pathologic gambling according to the specific target variable assessed. Research Paper Effect of executive functioning, decision-making IntroductionImpairments in self-regulatory behaviour seem to be involved in the development and maintenance of pathologic gambling and other addictive disorders.1,2 From a neuropsychological point of view, this impairment reflects a deficit in executive functioning and decision-making. 3,4 Executive functioning includes functions such as cognitive flexibility (set-shifting), which is associated with orbitofrontal functioning, and working memory, planning and abstract thinking, which are associated with dorsolateral prefrontal functioning. [5][6][7] However, decision-making seems to be mainly associated with activation of the ventromedial prefrontal cortex. 5,8 People with pathologic gambling have shown impaired performance in tasks measuring both concepts. Specifically, studies report deficits in cognitive inhibition, complex executive functions and attention. [9][10][11] This population also shows impairments in decision-making.12-14 Decision-making impairments are observed in impulsive individuals in general. Specifically, impulsive individuals show an insensitivity to variations in re...