Endorsement of Criminal Behavior Amongst Offenders: Implications for DSM-5 Gambling Disorder

Nigel E. Turner, Randy Stinchfield, John McCready, Steven McAvoy, Peter Ferentzy

Research output: Contribution to journalArticlepeer-review

13 Scopus citations

Abstract

The fifth edition of the diagnostic and statistical manual (DSM) has changed the scoring threshold for a gambling disorder (GD) from five criteria to four and eliminated the illegal acts criterion. The impact of these changes was examined with data from a correctional population (N = 676) in Ontario, Canada. The offenders completed a self-report survey that included the Canadian problem gambling index, the South Oaks Gambling Screen and the DSM-IV criteria. Changing the threshold from 5 to 4 improved the convergent validity for GD and resulted in an increase in the percentage of offenders diagnosed with a GD from 7.4 to 10.2 %. The results also indicate that the illegal acts criterion contributes to the convergent validity of GD. The evidence supports the change in the threshold from five to four, but also reinforces the importance of examining illegal acts when dealing with an offender population. The incorporation of illegal acts into the “lying to others” criteria appears to make up, to some extent, for the removal of the illegal acts criterion.

Original languageEnglish (US)
Pages (from-to)35-45
Number of pages11
JournalJournal of gambling studies
Volume32
Issue number1
DOIs
StatePublished - Mar 1 2016

Bibliographical note

Publisher Copyright:
© 2015, The Author(s).

Keywords

  • Convergent validity
  • DSM-5
  • Illegal acts
  • Offenders
  • Problem gambling

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