Men and women show different traits in gambling addiction

Susana Jimenez, lecturer at the Faculty of Medicine and Health Sciences at the Bellvitge Campus. Recerca To date, there were almost no studies comparing the gender features of gambling disorder and its evolution into more severe clinical conditions. Now, two articles published in and Neuropsychiatry determine that men and women have different profiles in gambling-related disorders, and in their evolution towards more serious states. The studies were led by Susana Jiménez, lecturer at the Department of Clinical Sciences ofthe UB and head of the Unit of Pathological Gambling at University Hospital of Bellvitge, and Roser Granero, lecturer at the UAB. The highest levels of gambling addiction among women are associated with a number of traits, which differentiate them from male patients with also severe pathology: they play a lower variety of games; at an older age (although, also in women, an earlier age of starting to play is associated with more severity); they live alone (they are mostly women without a partner or coming out of a separation or divorce); they have a medium-low or low economic level; worse health and have experienced more stressful life events throughout their lives than men. Actually, it is often after some traumatic or stressful situation that they begin to play problematically. It is also seen that women with a severe gambling disorder present more cognitive bias, that is, more fantasies and irrational beliefs related to the game.