Antidepressant prescription as a risk factor for developing gambling disorder: a longitudinal registry-based study in Norway

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Kaur, P, Smith, ORF, Leino, T, Erevik, EK, Griffiths, MD ORCID: https://orcid.org/0000-0001-8880-6524, Goudriaan, AE and Pallesen, S, 2025. Antidepressant prescription as a risk factor for developing gambling disorder: a longitudinal registry-based study in Norway. Journal of Behavioral Addictions. ISSN 2062-5871

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Official URL: https://doi.org/10.1556/2006.2024.00047

Abstract

Objective: The association between depression and gambling disorder (GD) has been well-researched. However, prior research lacks consensus on the temporal association between depression and GD. Furthermore, the extant literature has not explored the nature of the aforementioned relationship using objective research methodology data and large-scale samples. The present study addressed these research gaps by investigating the longitudinal relationship between antidepressant prescriptions and the likelihood of developing GD using registry data over a period of 11 years (2008–2018).

Methods: Data were derived from the Norwegian Patient Registry (NPR) that was matched with data from the Norwegian Prescription Registry (NorPD). The dataset comprised 27,420 individuals, where 5,131 were diagnosed with GD. A binary logistic regression analysis was conducted where individuals with GD were compared with 22,289 individuals matched on age and gender from NPR.

Results: The results show that individuals with antidepressant prescriptions had higher odds of developing GD (OR = 2.80, 95% CI: 2.60–3.01, p < 0.001). Furthermore, males and older adults were found to have a higher likelihood of being diagnosed with GD.

Conclusions: Depression is known to be one of the most common mental health disorders. The findings show that prior antidepressant prescription is associated with GD, which would be in accordance with the escape hypothesis because some individuals gamble to escape dysphoric feelings, such as depression. The study findings add to the existing knowledge on the temporal association of depression and GD. Furthermore, the results also have significant practical implications.

Item Type:	Journal article
Publication Title:	Journal of Behavioral Addictions
Creators:	Kaur, P., Smith, O.R.F., Leino, T., Erevik, E.K., Griffiths, M.D., Goudriaan, A.E. and Pallesen, S.
Publisher:	Akademiai Kiado Zrt.
Date:	13 February 2025
ISSN:	2062-5871
Identifiers:	Number Type 10.1556/2006.2024.00047 DOI 2377590 Other
Rights:	© 2024 The Author(s). This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution-NonCommercial 4.0 International License (https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by-nc/4.0/), which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium for non-commercial purposes, provided the original author and source are credited, a link to the CC License is provided, and changes – if any – are indicated.
Divisions:	Schools > School of Social Sciences
Record created by:	Laura Borcherds
Date Added:	17 Feb 2025 09:56
Last Modified:	17 Feb 2025 09:56
URI:	https://irep.ntu.ac.uk/id/eprint/53050