Abstract

BRODBECK, Jeannette; DUERRENBERGER, Sara  and  ZNOJ, Hansjoerg. Prevalence rates of at risk, problematic and pathological gambling in Switzerland. Eur. J. Psychiat. [online]. 2009, vol.23, n.2, pp.67-75. ISSN 0213-6163.

Background and Objectives: Few studies have assessed pathological gambling in Switzerland. We employed the National Opinion Research Center DSM Screen for Gambling Problems (NODS) to assess prevalence of gambling problems in German- and Italian-speaking Switzerland. Methods: A random sample of 4997 individuals participated in a computer-assisted telephone interview in 2007 and 1388 of the individuals who refused to participate on the telephone interview completed a paper questionnaire. The total sample included 6385 participants (52% women); the return rate was 52.2%. Results: Among the general population over 18 years of age, 2% engaged in lifetime at-risk gambling, 0.5% in problematic and 0.3% in pathological gambling. We found past-year prevalence rates of 0.7% of at-risk gambling, 0.1% for problematic and 0.02% for pathological gambling. Conclusions: These rates are at the lower end of international statistics and are lower than rates in previous Swiss studies. This may be due to measures to reduce false positive diagnoses in our study. Large differences between lifetime and past-year prevalence rates indicate that problematic and pathological gambling are not necessarily progressive and chronic disorders.

Keywords : Gambling; Prevalence; Switzerland.

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