Gambling harms in adult social care: developing an ‘introductory’ question to identify gambling harms among service users

Forward, C., Norrie, C., Bramley, S., Riley, L., Shearer, J., Finch, E., Stewart, G., Fletcher, P., Manthorpe, J. and Wardle, H. (2023) Gambling harms in adult social care: developing an ‘introductory’ question to identify gambling harms among service users. British Journal of Social Work, (doi: 10.1093/bjsw/bcad155) (Early Online Publication)

Abstract

Gambling harms are disproportionately experienced among disadvantaged groups and as such, adult social care (ASC) practitioners are well-placed to identify and support affected individuals. There exists no evidence-based ‘introductory’ question for practitioners to identify those at risk of gambling harms, which includes family and friends (‘affected others’). To develop an ‘introductory’ question for use in English ASC, we conducted a scoping review that identified fifteen potential questions. Questions were refined through expert panel review groups (n = 13), cognitive interviewing (n = 18), test–retest reliability checks (n = 20) and validity testing (n = 2,100) against gold-standard measures of problem gambling behaviour. The question development process produced two questions suitable for testing in local authority (LA) ASC departments. These were (i) ‘Do you feel you are affected by any gambling, either your own or someone else’s?’ and (ii) ‘If you or someone close to you gambles, do you feel it is causing you any worries?’ Each had good face validity, strong test–retest reliability, correlated highly with well-being measures and performed reasonably against validated measures of problem gambling. These two questions are currently being piloted by ASC practitioners in three English LAs to assess their feasibility for adoption in practice.

• Item Type: Articles
• Additional Information: Funding: This study was funded by part of a National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) funded project under its Research for Social Care Programme (Grant Reference Number NIHR201878). The views expressed are those of the authors and not necessarily those of the NIHR or the Department of Health and Social Care. Caroline Norrie and the HSCWRU at KCL is supported by the National Institute for Health and Care Research (NIHR) Applied Research Collaboration South London (NIHR ARC South London) at King’s College Hospital NHS Foundation Trust.
• Status: Early Online Publication
• Refereed: Yes
• Glasgow Author(s) Enlighten ID: Wardle, Professor Heather
• Authors: Forward, C., Norrie, C., Bramley, S., Riley, L., Shearer, J., Finch, E., Stewart, G., Fletcher, P., Manthorpe, J., and Wardle, H.
• College/School: College of Social Sciences > School of Social and Political Sciences > Sociology Anthropology and Applied Social Sciences
• Journal Name: British Journal of Social Work
• Publisher: Oxford University Press
• ISSN: 0045-3102
• ISSN (Online): 1468-263X
• Published Online: 22 June 2023
• Copyright Holders: Copyright © The Author(s) 2023
• First Published: First published in British Journal of Social Work 2023
• Publisher Policy: Reproduced under a Creative Commons license