Gambling and Impulsivity: An Exploratory Study in a French Adolescent Population

Pathological gambling can be a serious problem, more so to a vulnerable population such as ado-lescents and youth. This study aims to investigate the links between gambling behaviours and impulsivity through a multidimensional approach in a French adolescent population. A secondary aim of this study is to find out the prevalence of pathological gambling behaviour amongst adoles-cents who are not meant to have legal access to such games. We administered the UPPS Impulsive behaviour Scale (UPPS-P) and the Canadian Pathological Gambling Index CPGI to 1800 adolescents aged between 11 to 17 years. Our results indicate that 33 % of subjects have gambled at least once during the last year and that girls gamble as much as boys (17 % and 16 % respectively). Scratch games are the most common games played by adolescents (81.4%). We also notice that 1.6 % of our population has problematic gambling behaviour. Although we found that many dimensions of impulsivity (Urgency, Positive urgency and Sensation seeking) are correlated to gambling beha-viour, only sensation seeking seems to be a good predictor of pathological gambling severity