Gambling Disorder – Prevention in Adolescents

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 high-quality 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.