Depression in Gambling Disorder: investigating the role of Kill-Joy Thinking

Background: Gambling Disorder has been seen to be associated with mood disorder as depression and anxiety. Several researchers have shed light on a mediating role of emotion dysregulation in the pathways by which depression leads to GD. However, no study investigated the potential role of a difficulty to regulate positive emotions in such pathway. Method: We administered to a sample of addicted gamblers (N=75) and a sample of community participants (N=100) the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS; Lesieur & Blume, 1987), the Depression Anxiety Stress Scales (DASS; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995) and the Ways of Savoring Checklist (WOSC, Bryant & Weroff, 2007). Results: As expected, addicted gamblers scored higher on every subscale of the DASS compared to community participants. Moreover, the clinical sample obtained higher scores on some subscales of the WOSC compared to the control group. Finally, a mediation analysis revealed that Kill-Joy-Thinking totally mediated the relationship between Depression and Gambling Disorder Severity. Conclusions: Our results support previous studies showing that depression, anxiety and stress are important predictors of Gambling Disorder. Moreover, our study suggests that a difficulty to regulate positive emotions may account for the relationship between depression and Gambling Addiction.