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KMID : 0605720070130020324
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Journal of the Korean Society of Biological Therapies in Psychiatry
2007 Volume.13 No. 2 p.324 ~ p.339
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Comparison of Gambling Behavior Between Community Dwelling Male Aged Persons and Adults in Korea
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Cheon Jin-Sook
Kwon Myong-Hwon
Park Ji-Yong
Park So-Min
Park Sin-Hyung
Oh Byoung-Hoon
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Abstract
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Objective:The rate of participating to gambling even in old age is rapidly increasing. However, there are few studies on the gambling effect to health. The pathological gambling can be related to job loss, bankrupcy, arrest, divorce, mental health problem, general health abnormality. Therefore, the aims of this study were to compare gambling behaviors among Korean elderly and adults, to know the rate of pathological gambling and to determine cutoff point, and to provide data to develop a brief pathological gambling screening test specific to the Korean elderly by comparing items of the rating instrument of pathological gambling.
Method:The subjects who were volunteers without history of neuropsychiatric illnesses living in Busan were randomly selected among elderly males within age 60 to 85(N=105) and adult males within age 30 to 49(N=100). The structured interviews and assessments using various rating instruments which required about 40 minutes were performed by three psychiatric residents with the aid of 3-4th grade medical students who were totally blind about subjects. The demographic data(age, sex, education, occupation, religion, marriage, living style, income, etc), physical illness(stroke, metabolic disorder, degenerative arthritis, cancer, etc), pathological gambling(the Korean Version of the South Oaks Gambling Screen, the SOGS-K), gambling history(initiating age, duration, stakes, frequency, companion, etc) were included.
Results:1) On comparing of gambling behavior in the Korean elderly males to those in adult males, there were statistically significant difference in the duration, stakes, motivation and types of gambling(p＜0.001, respectively). Otherwise, there were no statistically significant difference in frequency, companion, parental gambling problem and initiating age of gambling. 2) Using cutoff score 5 as in USA, the rate of pathological gambling in elderly(41.0%) was significantly higher than those in adults(24.0%)(p＜0.05). However, applying cutoff score tentatively determined by the mean±S.D., there were no statistically significant difference between elderly(cutoff score 7, 12.4%) and adults(cutoff score 6, 21.0%). 3) There were significant difference between normal and pathological gambling subgroups of elderly in severity of gambling(p＜0.05), living alone(p＜0.05), housing(p＜0.005), monthly income(p＜0.05), smoking(p＜0.05) and motivation of gambling(p＜0.05). There were significant difference between normal and pathological gambling subgroups of adults in education(p＜0.001), religion(p＜0.05), physical illness (p＜0.005), initiation age of gambling (p＜0.05), frequency of gambling(p＜0.005), stakes(p＜0.05) and total money spending in gambling per month(p＜0.005). 4) In five items including item number 7(p＜0.005), 9(p＜0.005), 10(p＜0.05), 11(p＜0.001) and 14(p＜0.05) among the countable items of the SOGS-K(item number 4-11, 13-15, and 16a-16i), there were significant difference between adults and elderly, which might be used to make the brief form of the SOGS-K.
Conclusions:The gambling behavior of Korean elderly seems to be intimately related to the lack of recreational resources and mental health problems. Therefore, we expect our results can be reflected to the welfare policy for the Korean elderly to provide social and medical services, developing brief pathological gambling screening test to detect gambling problems earlier among Korean elderly.
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KEYWORD
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Korean elderly, Gambling behavior, Pathological gambling, Korean geriatric version of the brief gambling screening test
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