A Hong Kong school-based survey: impacts of parental gambling on adolescent gambling behavior and mental health status

A school-based survey was conducted to examine the impact of parental gambling on adolescent gambling behavior and mental health status. A self-administered standardized questionnaire was distributed to 1,095 high school students. The response rate was 84.5%. Almost half of the participants (46.5%) reported gambling in the past year. Using the DSM-IV-MR-J (Journal of Gambling Studies 16: 253-273, 2000), 3.3% (n = 31) of the participants could be identified as at-risk gamblers, and 0.9% (n = 8) could be classified as probable pathological gamblers. Only 16.7% of the participants (n = 155) disclosed having a parent who gambled excessively but the perceived harms in the family were alarming including disrupted family relationships, family financial difficulties and diminished need fulfillment. When compared with participants without parental gambling problems, adolescents with perceived parental gambling problems had significantly higher scores on the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scales (DASS-21) (Behavior Research and Therapy 33: 335-345, 1995). The study results have implications for preventive initiatives, intervention strategies and future research.