The Contribution of Sex, Personality Traits, Age of Onset and Disorder Duration to Behavioral Addictions

Abstract

Background and aims: Increases in the prevalence of behavioral addictions worldwide have led to a growth in the etiological research of the specific contribution of risk/protective factors to these disorders. The objective of this study was to assess the relative role of patients' sex, age of disorder onset and disorder duration on the clinical profile of behavioral addictions.Methods: Our sample included treatment-seeking patients diagnosed with gambling disorder (GD, n = 3,174), internet gambling disorder (IGD, n = 45), compulsive buying (CB, n = 113), and sex addiction (SA, n = 34).Results: The pattern of associations between the independent variables and the outcomes were strongly related to the behavioral addiction subtype: (a) for GD-men early onset of the disorder was related to GD severity, while for GD-women early onset was linked to novelty seeking; (b) for IGD-men, late onset correlated with addiction severity, worse psychopathological state, and high harm avoidance and self-transcendence levels; (c) for CB-women, early onset was related to higher reward-dependence scores and lower self-transcendence levels, and longer duration predicted higher cumulate debts; for CB-men, early onset and long duration correlated with high scores in harm-avoidance, self-directedness, self-transcendence, and cooperativeness; and (d) for SA-men, late onset and longer duration correlated with high disorder severity.Discussion and Conclusions: These findings are relevant for developing prevention and treatment programs specific to different behavioral addictions.

Psychopathogical status and personality correlates of problem gambling severity in sports bettors undergoing treatment for gambling disorder

“…Most of the participants were men, coinciding with what has been reported in previous literature for sports betting (Granero et al, 2020). Being a man has been considered a risk factor for gambling behavior (Hing, Russell, Vitartas et al, 2016;Hing, Russell, Tolchard et al, 2016;Jim enez-Murcia et al, 2020;Kim, von Ranson, Hodgins, McGrath, & Tavares, 2018;Valero-Sol ıs et al, 2018). Our data supports this idea, emphasizing the weight of being a man in sports betting as a predictor for debts, as well as the direct relationship between being a man and the presence of worse economic harmful consequences, with an increase in the amount of debt accumulated and the highest bets per betting episode.…”

Contribution of sex on the underlying mechanism of the gambling disorder severity

“…A clear relationship between GD age of onset and GD severity has been previously reported 57 – 60 . Notably, the current paths by sex are partially in agreement with previous literature, reporting a strong relationship between gambling initiation, severity of the disorder, and age of onset for GD among males seeking treatment, compared to females 22 , 40 , 61 . However, in the current study, results showed that the relationship between GD onset age-GD severity is even stronger in females (magnitudes of − 0.38 vs − 0.28).…”

“…In this sense, with the growth of females participation in gambling activities 31 , sex appears as an increasingly important factor within the evaluation of aspects underlying severity of GD. In treatment-seeking individuals with GD, sex differences have been already reported 9 , 22 , 32 – 34 . However, very few studies evaluate the profile factors for gambling in females 18 , 35 .…”

“…There are other neuropsychological variables involved in GD that have been evaluated in order to define prevention approaches. Personality-related traits, such as neuroticism, impulse, self-directness, or harm-avoidance, among others, appear clearly dysfunctional in GD 8 , 16 – 22 , and even some of these factors seem to facilitate vulnerability to GD 23 .…”

A Serious Game to Improve Emotion Regulation in Treatment-Seeking Individuals With Gambling Disorder: A Usability Study

“…Since available empirical evidence in the scientific literature has indicated that sex and age play an important moderating role in gambling ( Valero-Solís et al, 2018 ; Granero et al, 2020 ; Jiménez-Murcia et al, 2020 ), these two sociodemographic variables were considered.…”