Comparing the Efficacy of an Online Gambling Intervention to a no Intervention Control Condition

Comparing the Efficacy of an Online Gambling Intervention to a no Intervention Control Condition: Randomized Controlled Trial

Online interventions for gambling problems hold a strong potential to help people with gambling concerns. However, there are no trials, to-date, that have been able to demonstrate the effectiveness of such an intervention. The current trial will compare participants provided access to an online gambling intervention to those assigned by chance to a no intervention condition in order to test the efficacy of one such Internet intervention for gambling.

Participants will be recruited through Amazon's MTurk crowdsourcing platform. Potential participants identified as problem gamblers who are interested in quitting or reducing their gambling in the next 6 months, or often think about it, based on an initial survey will be invited to complete additional surveys at 6 weeks and 6 months. Those who then agree to be followed up will be randomized to access an online intervention for gambling or a no-intervention website. These participants will then be contacted again at 6 weeks and 6 months to ask about their gambling, and their impressions of the online intervention. The primary hypothesis to be tested is that participants receiving access to the online gambling intervention will report a greater reduction in number of days gambling and in NODS scores at 6-month follow-up than participants in the no intervention control condition.

Study Overview

• Status: Completed
• Conditions: Gambling Problem
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Online Gambling Internet Intervention

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Actual): 321
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

Study Locations

• Canada
  • Ontario
    • Toronto, Ontario, Canada, M5S 2S1
      • Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: 18 years and older (Adult, Older Adult)
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: No
• Genders Eligible for Study: All

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• 18 years of age or over
• A score of 5 or over on the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI)
• Thinking about cutting down or quitting their gambling (in next 6 months, or state that they are thinking about it most or almost all of the time)
• Willingness to complete a 6-week and 6-month follow-up survey

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

• Primary Purpose: Other
• Allocation: Randomized
• Interventional Model: Parallel Assignment
• Masking: Single

Number of Arms

2

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: No Intervention; A questionnaire that asks individuals what components of an online intervention they might find useful.
Experimental: Online Gambling Internet Intervention; An online gambling Internet intervention (housed at CAMH and developed based on the self-help materials created by Professor David Hodgins)	Behavioral: Online Gambling Internet Intervention; CAMH's online gambling intervention which includes self-help materials as well as a personalized feedback component.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in the variable, National Opinion Research Center DSM Screen for Gambling Problems (NODS) score	Screening tool for gambling problems according to DSM-IV criteria	Past 6 months

Secondary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in the variable, number of days gambling in the past month	Total days gambled in the past 30 days	6 weeks and 6 months
Change in the variable, Gambling Symptom Assessment Scale (GSAS) score	Gambling symptom severity in the past week	6 weeks and 6 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Centre for Addiction and Mental Health
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: John A Cunningham, PhD, Centre for Addiction and Mental Health

Publications and helpful links

General Publications

• Schell C, Godinho A, Cunningham JA. Examining Change in Self-Reported Gambling Measures Over Time as Related to Socially Desirable Responding Bias. J Gambl Stud. 2021 Sep;37(3):1043-1054. doi: 10.1007/s10899-020-09970-1.
• Cunningham JA, Godinho A, Hodgins DC. Pilot randomized controlled trial of an online intervention for problem gamblers. Addict Behav Rep. 2019 Mar 6;9:100175. doi: 10.1016/j.abrep.2019.100175. eCollection 2019 Jun.

Helpful Links

• Information about research at the Centre for Addiction and Mental Health, Canada's largest mental health and addiction teaching hospital, fully affiliated with the University of Toronto, and a PAHO/WHO Collaborating Centre

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Actual): April 21, 2017
• Primary Completion (Actual): November 23, 2017
• Study Completion (Actual): November 23, 2017

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: April 19, 2017
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 20, 2017
• First Posted (Actual): April 24, 2017

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): December 5, 2017
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: December 1, 2017
• Last Verified: December 1, 2017

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct Disorders; Gambling
• Other Study ID Numbers: 01/19/2017

Plan for Individual participant data (IPD)

• Plan to Share Individual Participant Data (IPD)?: NO

Drug and device information, study documents

• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated drug product: No
• Studies a U.S. FDA-regulated device product: No