A Critical Review of the Scholarly Discourse on Gambling Disorder Treatment

Abstract

This article presents a critical systematic review of the literature on disordered gambling treatment, with a focus on the “how” of treatment delivery. A review of six peer-reviewed research databases was performed, along with hand searches of select journals. Peer-reviewed articles that discussed or evaluated psychological and relational treatments of gambling disorder were selected for a review and coded independently by all members of the research team. The sample for this study included 445 articles that were published in the English language over the past 50 years, through June 2019. The sample included not only evaluations and case studies (k = 231) but also descriptive research (k = 49), meta-analyses (k = 10), and literature reviews (k = 155). The results showed that face-to-face, professionally facilitated treatment of individuals has remained the primary focus of problem gambling literature during the period under study. That said, a number of alternative treatment modalities have emerged, particularly in the last two decades. This includes increased reliance on technology (i.e., internet and telephone/text) as an adjunct to face-to-face treatment or as a means for delivering stand-alone professionally facilitated or self-directed interventions. Our discussion includes the benefits of these approaches as reflected in the literature while also situating findings within discourses on Western-dominated trends toward the use of technology, prioritization of efficiency, and individual focus in mental health treatment.