March 18, 2009

Studying the stigma of problem gamblers

Jenny Horch determined that problem gamblers are indeed stigmatized and that people avoided them more than individuals who are suffering from cancer and another control condition.

“The biggest problem with stigma is the fact that it reduces the likelihood that people will seek treatment,” says Horch, with the U of C’s Department of Psychology. “People don’t want to ask for help because they fear others will think negatively of them. So they hide it.”

Stigma has been dubbed the greatest problem facing the entire field of mental health. Horch recently attended the Fourth International Conference on Stigma in London, England, where 240 delegates attended from 44 countries. Much work has been done in recent years researching how stigma affects people who suffer from mental illness. At the same time, little has been done studying similar discrimination of problem gamblers.

An estimated five percent of the population have a gambling problem, which means at least 50,000 Calgarians alone suffer from the addiction. And given that each problem gambler affects at least eight other people—mainly friends and family—the impacts have wide-reaching effects.

“I wanted to find out if there actually was a stigma and measure it,” says Horch.

As part of her master’s studies work, Horch did a study of 250 students to measure the level of social distance, or willingness to interact with an individual known to have an illness or addiction. Her work determined that problem gamblers are indeed stigmatized and that people avoided them more than individuals who are suffering from cancer and another control condition.

“Problem gambling is a lesser-known problem than alcohol addiction and not as obvious. If someone was drunk and walked down the hall, we might be able to tell. But if someone had just blown $5,000 at the casino and lost their rent money and savings in the process, we’d probably have no idea.”

Horch’s current research is looking at pinpointing the stereotypes of problem gamblers in order to track the source of prejudice and discrimination. She is also currently running a study regarding self-stigma in problem gamblers and is interested in learning more from the problem gamblers point of view. She is offering a $20 gift certificate for participation and individuals who are interested may call 403-210-9580 to see if they are eligible to participate.

Horch’s research will help the mental health field understand pathological gambling, says her advisor David Hodgins, who runs the Addictive Behaviours lab at the U of C.

“We have begun to develop effective treatments for people wanting to overcome gambling addiction but we also have to eliminate the barriers that people face in accessing treatment. Stigma is one of those barriers.”