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01-03-2009 | Original Paper

Barriers to Help-seeking for a Gambling Problem: The Experiences of Gamblers Who Have Sought Specialist Assistance and the Perceptions of Those Who Have Not

Authors: Justin Pulford, Maria Bellringer, Max Abbott, Dave Clarke, David Hodgins, Jeremy Williams

Published in: Journal of Gambling Studies | Issue 1/2009

Abstract

This paper presents barriers to help-seeking data as reported by users of a national gambling helpline (help-seekers, HS, N = 125) as well as data pertaining to perceived barriers to seeking help as reported by gamblers recruited from the general population (non-help-seekers, NHS, N = 104). All data were collected via a structured, multi-modal survey. When asked to identify actual or perceived barriers to seeking help, responses indicative of pride (78% of HS participants, 84% of NHS participants), shame (73% of HS participants, 84% of NHS participants) or denial (87% of NHS participants) were most frequently reported. These three factors were also most often identified as the real or perceived primary barrier to help-seeking (collectively accounting for 55% of HS, and 60% of NHS, responses to this question) and were the only barriers to be identified by more than 10% of either HS and NHS participants without prompting. It was of note, however, that participants in both groups identified multiple barriers to help-seeking (mean of 6.7 and 12.2, respectively) and that, when presented with a list of 21 possible barrier items, NHS participants endorsed 19 of the listed items significantly more often than their HS counterparts. The implications of these findings, with respect to promoting greater or earlier help-seeking activity amongst problem gamblers, are discussed.

In 2006, at least 24 services located throughout New Zealand received government funding to provide treatment to problem gamblers and/or their family. By comparison, in 1991 (the year of this country’s first national problem gambling prevalence study) there were no specialist problem gambling services available in New Zealand.

106 participants were recruited for this study; however, barrier to help-seeking data were only obtained from the 59% (63/106) of participants who reported never having sought specialist treatment for a gambling problem.

If a participant had already identified one or more of the 21 listed barrier items in response to open-ended questioning, then the corresponding item(s) were excluded from the prompted list.

The options “…understand their language” and “…relate to their culture” were endorsed by 55% (32/58) and 52% (30/58) of the non-NZ European participants, respectively.

Between-group differences in these areas were reported in the companion paper (Pulford et al. in press).

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Title: Barriers to Help-seeking for a Gambling Problem: The Experiences of Gamblers Who Have Sought Specialist Assistance and the Perceptions of Those Who Have Not
Authors: Justin Pulford
Maria Bellringer
Max Abbott
Dave Clarke
David Hodgins
Jeremy Williams
Publication date: 01-03-2009
Publisher: Springer US
Published in: Journal of Gambling Studies / Issue 1/2009
Electronic ISSN: 1573-3602
DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/s10899-008-9113-9

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Barriers to Help-seeking for a Gambling Problem: The Experiences of Gamblers Who Have Sought Specialist Assistance and the Perceptions of Those Who Have Not

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