Synonyms
Impulse control disorders; Addiction
Definition and Characteristics
Pathological gambling is classified in the DSM-IV as a disorder of impulse control with the essential feature being recurrent and maladaptive gambling behavior. Pathological gambling is a male dominated chronic progressive disease characterized by the overwhelming wish to gamble, with harmful consequences, thus sharing typical features with other impulse control disorders like trichotillomania, kleptomania or pyromania [1].
Prevalence
With rates of about 0.2–3.4%, pathological gambling is a prevalent and highly disabling impulse control disorder, which also represents a form of non-pharmacological addiction. Gambling is strongly connected with antisocial personality disorder and substance abuse disorder but associations exist with depression, cyclothymia, bipolar disorder, alcohol, tobacco and attention deficit hyperactivity and with obsessive-compulsive, antisocial, narcissistic and borderline personality...
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References
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American Psychiatric Association (2000) DSM-IV-TR: Diagnostic and statistical manual of mental disorders. American Psychiatric Association, Arlington
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Lang, U.E. (2009). Pathological Gambling. In: Lang, F. (eds) Encyclopedia of Molecular Mechanisms of Disease. Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg. https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29676-8_3237
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DOI: https://doi.org/10.1007/978-3-540-29676-8_3237
Publisher Name: Springer, Berlin, Heidelberg
Print ISBN: 978-3-540-67136-7
Online ISBN: 978-3-540-29676-8
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