Gambling is now recognized as a public health concern in England. An earlier report based on the Adult Psychiatric Morbidity Survey APMS 2007 found that problem gamblers were much more likely than non-problem gamblers to either have had suicidal thoughts or attempted suicide in the past year. This report uses the same dataset to explore the extent to which loneliness may be associated with gambling and self harm, suicidal thoughts and suicide attempts. The APMS 2007 is a general population survey of England with 6941 respondents
The researchers divided the 6941 survey respondents into three groups: problem gamblers, at-risk gamblers, and non-problem gamblers including non-gamblers. Problem gamblers were morely likely to feel lonely than the other two groups, and problem gamblers also had higher levels of lifetime suicidal thoughts, self-harm, and suicide attempts compared to non-gamblers.
Analysis found that loneliness consistently co-occured with problem gambling and suicidality, but the association between problem gambling and suicidality persisted independent of loneliness. Many other issues were important factors in the association with problem gambling and suicidality, including smoking, , alcohol and substance misuse, and poor physical and mental health. The results suggest that addressing loneliness may reduce risks of suicidein some problem gamblers, but the results are highly preliminary an further investigation is needed.
This report is part of a three-report series on gambling and suicide in England. The other reports and an executive summary of all three reports are linked below.
