COPING IN THOSE WITH PATHOLOGICAL GAMBLING PARTNERS

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Individuals with pathological-gambling partners often experience a high degree of depression and other psychological distress. Increasingly this distress has been viewed from within family stress and coping theory. In other words, the emotional and physical problems of the individual are the result of his or her frustrated efforts to cope with disruption caused by the partner's gambling. Systematic assessment of coping efforts in this population, however, have not occurred. Also, the content of treatment programs for individuals with pathological-gambling partners have lacked a strong empirical base. This measurement and therapy development project addresses these methodological problems by (a) systematically developing the Gambler Situation Inventory (GSI), a role-play measure of coping skills in individuals with pathological-gambling partners, and (b), using clinically-relevant inventory content, designing and pilot-testing a coping skills training program for this population. The project is completed in three phases. In Phase I, a pool of representative gambling-related problem situations experienced by this population is developed. Situations within content area then are assigned to parallel forms, and cognitive and behavioral response scoring criteria systematically developed. In Phase II, the psychometric properties of the GSI are evaluated in individuals with pathological-gambling partners from treatment and nontreatment populations. These psychometric properties include: (a) generalizability analyses of the GSI with estimation of variance components for persons, situations, forms, and raters; (b) analysis of alternate form reliability; (c) analysis of test-retest reliability; and (d) analysis of concurrent validity of the GSI with respect to actual gambling-related coping, individual functioning, and the gambler's functioning. In Phase III, a coping skills training program for individuals with pathological-gambling partners is developed and pilot-tested. The content of this program will be based on material and response criteria developed during Phase I. In this pilot, subjects are randomly assigned to either a coping skills training or wait-list control condition. The effect of the training program is assessed with respect to changes in subject coping skills (using alternate GSI forms), and subject and gambler functioning. GSI development and piloting of the GSI-based training program will fill a serious void in the gambling treatment literature, and serve as a strong foundation upon which to build future clinical trials evaluating skill training programs for individuals confronted with a partner's pathological gambling.