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 updated June 30, 2005

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Gambling and Personality Protocol (GAPP) - Validity and Measurement Issues in Pathological Gambling

Project Title	Gambling and Personality Protocol (GAPP) - Validity and Measurement Issues in Pathological Gambling
Funding Source	National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)
Project Dates	9/25/2003 - 4/30/2005
Project Number	1 R01 DA15032
Team	Principal Investigators- Renee Cunningham-Williams, Ph.D. Co-Investigator- Linda B. Cottler, Ph.D. Edward L. Spitznagel, Ph.D.
Project Coordinator	Samantha Books, MPE.

Description

The, "Validity and Measurement Issues in Pathological Gambling" (nicknamed, GAPP – Gambling and Personality Protocol), responds to a call for much needed attention to measurement and design challenges in mental health research. This is especially essential in pathological gambling (PG) research. National research efforts have recognized the need for consensus in the validity and assessment of PG across diverse populations (e.g., those with comorbid mental health and substance abuse conditions; NRC Report 1999). Critical to making these inroads is the development of rigorously tested tools for diagnosing the disorder, such as our research team's development of the computerized Gambling Assessment Module (C-GAM). The C-GAM addresses the criticisms of currently available assessments of PG. The currently proposed study adds a new dimension of validity to the Pl's NIDA (K01) Award design. The order of the clinical interview session will be randomly assigned to occur either one week before or one week after the two lab administered interviews. The clinical interview session includes administration of the semi-structured CGAM and a comprehensive personality assessment. Thus, the major aim of the proposed study is to establish diagnostic concordance of the structured, lay administered C-GAM interview to the semi structured, clinician administered C-GAM interview for the overall sample (n=150) and for several subgroups of gamblers varying by socio-demographics and psychiatric and substance abuse comorbidity. We will also evaluate the sensitivity and specificity of the C-GAM and explore the dimensionality of PG. As a methodology to further understand answers given in multiple interviews, we will evaluate discrepancies between the clinical and lay interviews, reasons for those discrepancies, and level of respondent understanding of these items. The proposed methodology is innovative in PG research and can potentially increase our understanding of PG disorder, thus aiding in future research and clinical efforts in refining diagnoses, establishing prevalence estimates, and identifying risk and protective factors associated with the development of comorbid mental health and substance use problems.

Updates:

We have completed the start-up phase of this project, and have entered the field. We have also recruited, hired, and trained our licensed clinical consultants for this study. Each of the clinicians has experience in the diagnosis and assessment of PG. We have also developed and/or modified, and compiled all of the project’s protocol manuals and project-related materials such as respondent booklets, interviewing binders, respondent files, and interview face sheets for this project. The computerized subject tracking database has been modified. The project’s protocols for interviewing and editing have also been pilot tested and modified accordingly for this project. This next project year will focus on data collection and analysis.

Volunteers Needed for Study!
Click here for the gambling study volunteer flyer

 

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