Abstract
Clinical interventions which focus on extinction learning have been shown to reduce craving and relapse in substance related and behavioural addictions. This paper reports a small pilot study with 20 problem gamblers referred for treatment by a local court diversion program. We investigated the use of portable heart rate monitors to measure the effectiveness of Cue Exposure Therapy (CET) in extinguishing gambling cue-reactivity. Cue-reactivity procedures consisted of a relaxation period followed by in-vivo exposure with response prevention in a gambling environment. Cue exposure therapy was manualised. Dependent measures comprised both self-report (gambling urge and problem gambling questionnaire) and physiologic measures (heart rate). Significant increases in heart rate were observed during in-vivo pre-CET but not post-CET (p < 0.001). Following CET, significant reductions across all dependent variables were observed (p ≤ 0.001) with within-group effect sizes ranging between r = -.55 and -.61. Overall, the results of this small pilot study support the feasibility and acceptability of the use of portable heart rate monitors to observe the extinction of gambling cue-reactivity. Portable heart rate monitors may provide a novel and useful tool for therapists and their problem gambling patients to monitor gambling cue-reactivity during treatment. Further research is needed to evaluate whether extinction of cue-reactivity can reduce problem gambling relapse
Original language | English |
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Article number | 1010 |
Number of pages | 6 |
Journal | Journal of Addiction & Recovery |
Volume | 2 |
DOIs | |
Publication status | Published - 14 Nov 2018 |
Keywords
- Cue exposure
- Problem gambling
- Cue-reactivity
- Urge
- Pre-post design
- Physiology