Assessing the role of impulsivity in smoking & non-smoking disordered gamblers

- Tobacco use is especially prevalent among disordered gamblers (DGs)
- Similar facets of trait impulsivity have been implicated in both DG and smoking
- DGs who smoke daily displayed significantly higher negative urgency scores than those who are non-smokers or occasional smokers
- Results suggest that negative urgency may be a key underlying mechanism in the maintenance of co-morbid DG and tobacco dependence

BackgroundCo-morbidity with other addictive behaviors is common in disordered gambling (DG). In particular, tobacco dependence has been found to be among the most prevalent disorders co-morbid with DG. While the extant literature has firmly established the co-occurrence of DG and smoking, there is a paucity of research examining factors that differentiate DGs who smoke from those who do not.ObjectivesTo address this empirical gap, the current study tested whether dimensions of trait impulsivity as measured by the UPPS-P Impulsive Behavior Scale (positive urgency, negative urgency, lack of premeditation, lack of perseverance, and sensation seeking), discriminated between non-DGs and DGs based on their present smoking status: non-smoker, occasional smoker, and daily smoker.MethodsTo this end, 564 community gamblers were recruited through a crowdsourcing platform (Amazon's Mechanical Turk) and completed an online survey, assessing problem gambling severity, tobacco use, and trait impulsivity.ResultsMANOVA analyses revealed significant main effects for both gambling severity and smoking status groups. Importantly, a significant gambling by smoking interaction was also found. Pairwise comparisons revealed that DGs who were daily smokers scored higher on negative urgency than those who smoked occasionally or not all. Furthermore, among non-DGs, smoking status failed to discriminate between mean scores on negative urgency. No other significant interaction effects were found for the remaining UPPS-P impulsivity facets.ConclusionsResults suggest that individual components of trait impulsivity, and more specifically negative urgency, successfully differentiate DGs who do not smoke, or just smoke occasionally, from DGs who smoke daily. These findings suggest that the degree of trait impulsivity may potentially distinguish between DGs and DGs who are dually addicted to other substances such as tobacco.