Social Psychiatry, Vol. 49 No. 3, 2021.
Review article
https://doi.org/10.24869/spsih.2021.179
Gambling Disorder – Prevention in Adolescents
Lea Tomašić
orcid.org/0000-0001-7546-5361
; University of Zagreb, School of Medicine, Croatia
Zrnka Kovačić Petrović
orcid.org/0000-0001-8763-9090
; University of Zagreb, School of Medicine, Croatia; University Psychiatric Hospital Vrapče, Zagreb, Croatia
Abstract
Gambling disorder is a recurrent gambling activity that disrupts the general condition or causes a significant problem
for a person. The prevalence estimates of this illness in the world range between 0.01 and 10.6% in the adult population,
and it is even more common in adolescents. The most important triggers of gambling disorder are the high availability
and accessibility of gambling, i.e., the possibility of online gambling. Men, single people, and people living in a socially
deprived environment are at a higher risk of developing gambling disorder. However, the critical age of brain sensitivity
for the development of addiction, including gambling disorder, is adolescence. In Croatia, as many as 12.9% of high
school students meet the criteria for problem gambling. Given that gambling disorder causes significant psychosocial
consequences and is associated with numerous psychic and physical comorbidities, it is necessary to design highquality
preventive interventions. There are numerous preventive programmes in the world and in our country aimed
at adolescents, the most successful being those of a longer duration that cover multiple aspects of addiction and affect
changes in behaviour. Prevention of this disease is a significant public health imperative that should involve individuals,
family, social environment and appropriate legislation, financial support, interdisciplinary professional cooperation and
scientific evaluation of the effectiveness of the applied programmes.
Keywords
Adolescents; Gambling Disorder; Prevention Programmes; Problematic Gambling; Psychosocial Consequences
Hrčak ID:
272101
URI
Publication date:
8.2.2022.
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