Publication:

Pathological gambling and personality disorders: an exploratory study with the IPDE

In this paper, the most frequent personality disorders related to pathological gambling are described. A sample of 50 pathological gamblers, who were assessed with the IPDE in the course of the pre-treatment assessment, and of 50 normative subjects from general population with the same demographic features (age, sex and socioeconomic level) was selected. According to the results, the 32% of clinical sample (versus the 8% of normative sample) showed at least one personality disorder. The most prevalent ones were the Borderline (16%), followed by the Antisocial, Paranoid, Narcissistic and Non specified (8% each one of them). Furthermore, the gamblers with personality disorders presented an average of 1.5 disorders. Gamblers with personality disorders showed a higher gambling severity and more severe symptoms of anxiety, depression and alcohol abuse. Finally, implications of this study for clinical practice and future research in this field are commented upon.