Measuring Risk in Adolescents before Harm for Prevention Not Treatment: A New Approach to Risk Assessment for Social Policy, and Prevention Applications

For the most part, current adolescent screens are adaptations of short screens originally designed to measure problem gambling among adults. Other measures such as the CAGI do not adequately capture risk associated with gambling among youth. The authors, using principles and methods employed in the development of the FocaL Adult Gambling Screen (FLAGS™), developed the Focal Youth Gambling Risk Screen (FYGRS™) designed specifically to identify adolescents at varying degrees of risk due to gambling as well as those who have been harmed or are problem gamblers. FYGRS uses constructs such as: adult facilitation of gambling, the influence of others and peers, opportunities to gamble, risky cognitions beliefs, risky cognitions motives, impaired control, risky practices around gambling, and harms experienced by adolescents caused by their gambling. Collecting such a detailed list of indicators allows for targeted feedback to the youth by counsellors or through documentation if self-administered. It also allows policy makers to identify key factors leading to risk and harms among adolescents and adopt appropriate strategies for dealing with it. The presentation will provide an overview of the process for development of the instrument including testing for validity and reliability. We have completed two phases of research utilizing this instrument and there are several projects going to field to test it further. Results from these recent studies will be discussed and the resulting refinements to the instrument presented