Beliefs About Mental Health Treatment - Gambling Addiction Study in Colorado

The Stanford Gambling Addiction Therapy Study (SGATS) in Colorado

Many people with mental health conditions do not seek treatment, and it is unclear what exactly prevents people from taking up treatment. The goal of this interventional study is to learn about how people think about cognitive behavioral therapy (CBT) for gambling disorders. The main questions it aims to answer are:

• Do people have incorrect beliefs about the net benefits of CBT? If yes, which beliefs are those, and how much do people underestimate or overestimate the benefits?
• Is a small monetary incentive (that participants receive conditional on trying out CBT) helpful in increasing take-up of CBT?

Apart from these questions, the researchers will also study how well CBT works to treat gambling disorders.

Participants will be asked to complete two surveys over four months and might be offered a modest monetary incentive for doing (free) CBT if they are in the treatment group. Researchers will compare that treatment group to a control group. Participants in the control group will have access to free CBT and do the same two surveys as those in the treatment group, but will not receive the monetary incentive.

Study Overview

• Status: Not yet recruiting
• Conditions: Gambling Disorder; Gambling Problem; Mental Health Issue
• Intervention / Treatment: Behavioral: Monetary Incentive for Take-Up of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy

• Study Type: Interventional
• Enrollment (Estimated): 375
• Phase: Not Applicable

Contacts and Locations

• Study Contact: Name: Sarah Bogl; Phone Number: 6504696028; Email: sbogl@stanford.edu
• Study Contact Backup: Name: Matt Brown; Email: mbrown35@stanford.edu

Participation Criteria

Eligibility Criteria

• Ages Eligible for Study: Adult; Older Adult
• Accepts Healthy Volunteers: Yes

Description

Inclusion Criteria:

• must reside in Colorado
• must be English-speaking

Exclusion Criteria:

• does not reside in Colorado
• is not English-speaking

Study Plan

How is the study designed?

Design Details

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

Number of Arms

3

Arms and Interventions

Participant Group / Arm	Intervention / Treatment
No Intervention: No Incentive; The "No Incentive" arm will participate in two surveys-including questions about beliefs about therapy and willingness to pay for therapy, gambling behavior, and well-being-at the baseline and at the end (four months after the first survey). The arm will have access to free cognitive behavioral therapy through Kindbridge Behavioral Health, but will not receive a monetary incentive to undergo therapy.
Experimental: Fixed Incentive; The "Fixed Incentive" arm will participate in two surveys-including questions about beliefs about therapy and willingness to pay for therapy, gambling behavior, and well-being-at the baseline and at the end (four months after the first survey). The arm will have access to free cognitive behavioral therapy through Kindbridge Behavioral Health and will be offered a modest monetary incentive to undergo therapy. The incentive will be in form of an electronic gift card. The amount of money offered as an incentive will not depend on the participants' survey replies.	Behavioral: Monetary Incentive for Take-Up of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Both treatment arms will be offered a monetary incentive (in form of a retail gift card) for undergoing a certain number of CBT sessions.
Experimental: Payment According to Multiple Price List Choices; The "Multiple Price List" arm will participate in two surveys-including questions about beliefs about therapy and willingness to pay for therapy, gambling behavior, and well-being-at the baseline and at the end. The arm will have access to free cognitive behavioral therapy through Kindbridge Behavioral Health and might be offered a modest monetary incentive to undergo therapy. More specifically, for all arms, the surveys will include a multiple price list to gauge willingness to pay for CBT. For this "multiple price list" arm, one of the rows from the multiple price list will be (randomly) picked and implemented. Depending on what the participant answered in the randomly picked row, they will either receive an unconditional payment or a payment conditional on undergoing CBT. In either case, the payment will be in form of an electronic gift card.	Behavioral: Monetary Incentive for Take-Up of Cognitive Behavioral Therapy; Both treatment arms will be offered a monetary incentive (in form of a retail gift card) for undergoing a certain number of CBT sessions.

What is the study measuring?

Primary Outcome Measures

Outcome Measure	Measure Description	Time Frame
Change in Willingness to Pay for CBT	Change in participants' willingness to pay (in USD; elicited through multiple price lists) for CBT from baseline to follow-up survey.	Baseline and 4 months
Change in Beliefs about CBT	Change in participants' beliefs about therapy (such as effectiveness, unpleasantness, stigma, etc.) will between baseline and follow-up survey (4 months after baseline).	Baseline and 4 months
Attendance of CBT sessions	Dates and number of CBT sessions participants attend (as long as they are with Kindbridge Behavioral Health) between baseline survey and follow-up survey (afer 4 months).	4 months
Change in Gambling Consumption	Amount wagered (in USD) in online and offline gambling by participants over the last month. Difference between stated amount at baseline and stated amount in follow-up survey.	Baseline and 4 months
Change in Subjective Well-Being	Change in measure of participants' wellbeing from baseline to follow-up (at four months), computed using Likert scale style questions about feeling happy/depressed/satisfied/anxious/etc. Answers are on a seven-point scale from "strongly disagree" through "neutral" to "strongly agree." Points for each question are coded such that more positive answers get more points (so from most negative to most positive, the points -1, -2/3, -1/3, 0, 1/3, 2/3, 1 are awarded) and subjective well-being is the sum of all points.	Baseline and 4 months

Collaborators and Investigators

• Sponsor: Stanford University
• Collaborators: Kindbridge Research Institute
• Investigators: Principal Investigator: Sarah Bogl, Stanford University; Principal Investigator: Matt Brown, Stanford University; Principal Investigator: Mariana Guido, Stanford University; Principal Investigator: Nick Grasley, Stanford University

Study record dates

Study Major Dates

• Study Start (Estimated): June 1, 2025
• Primary Completion (Estimated): March 1, 2026
• Study Completion (Estimated): March 1, 2026

Study Registration Dates

• First Submitted: July 18, 2024
• First Submitted That Met QC Criteria: July 18, 2024
• First Posted (Actual): July 24, 2024

Study Record Updates

• Last Update Posted (Actual): April 16, 2025
• Last Update Submitted That Met QC Criteria: April 12, 2025
• Last Verified: April 1, 2025

More Information

Terms related to this study

• Keywords: Beliefs; Incentive; Bias
• Additional Relevant MeSH Terms: Mental Disorders; Disruptive, Impulse Control, and Conduct Disorders; Gambling
• Other Study ID Numbers: 75109

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