The relationship between alexithymia and gambling problems: a systematic review

Introduction: Gambling problems impact 0.2%–4.0% of the population (Stucki & Rihs-Middel, 2007), and research related to this issue has burgeoned in the last decades (Petry et al., 2017). Alexithymia has been proposed as a personality trait related to the onset and maintenance of gambling problems (Bonnaire et al., 2017; Lumley & Roby, 1995; Noël et al., 2018). This presentation reviews empirical research on the association between alexithymia and gambling problems using Preferred Reporting Items for Systematic Reviews and Meta-Analyses Standards. Methods: Medical, health and psychological literature databases including PubMed, Cochrane Database for Systematic Review, PsycINFO, Web of Science, Scopus were used, and the search included all publication years (till April 2019). The keywords used for the systematic search were gambl* AND alexithym*. Results: Twenty articles were identified as eligible and relevant for the final qualitative synthesis. Consistent results were found on the direct pathway between involvement in gambling and alexithymia (Maniaci et al., 2015; Mitrovic & Brown, 2009; Toneatto et al., 2009). Parker and colleagues (2005) found that 22% of pathological gamblers could be considered as alexithymic. More recent studies have provided evidence for indirect pathways including affective, cognitive and other personality factors related with both these conditions (Di Trani et al., 2017; Maniaci et al., 2017; Noël et al., 2018). Conclusions: Alexithymia may act as a risk factor in individuals overwhelmed by their sensations, using gambling to cope with distress conditions thus developing gambling problems to self-regulate disruptive emotions (Bonnaire et al., 2013). An increased understanding of etiological and maintenance determinants of gambling problems will lead to better social and clinical interventions (Noël et al., 2018).