Gambling in Croatia Zrinka Puharić Technical college Bjelovar Nursing department

Gambling? Who can do it?

Potencial risks

Previous research Prevalence rate of gambling problems vary from 4 to 8% (Volberg et al and Coxs et al). Harvard meta-analysis concludes that 4.4% - 7.4% of youth aged 13- 20 years have been involved in some kind of gambling activity (Shaffer et al). ESPAD study done in Croatia among youth of 16 years of age show that 8.6% of them played on slot machine at least once a week, and 4.4% of boys do it almost daily.

Goal: to explore this public health problem in general population and see differences between sex, place of living, completed education and financial status of respondents. Objectives and methods: the study was done between September and October 2016. Participans were informed of study nature being voluntary and anonymous. We used special structured questionnaire using translated questions from questionnaires from different countries.

Results Study included 430 respondents (215 from the city, 215 from countryside), 250 women and 180 man. Primary school completed 16.5% (83% women and 17% man), middle school 67.2% (57% women and 43% man) and high education have 16.3% (25% women and 75% man) Their financial status is bad (9.5%), average (84.9%) and excellent (5.6%).

They are gambling  twice a month (0,7%), three times a month (19,1%), four times a month (47,9%), more than 5 times a month (32,2%). Men are betting more than women (x² = 16.083, df = 3, p˂0,001), men from the city more than those from the countryside (x² = 24.948, df = 3, p˂0,001), due to the completed education is not found statistically significant difference (x² = 1864, df = 3, p = 0.431), as well as the personal assessment of the financial status (x² = 4457, df = 3, p = 0.216).

Gambling is growing public health problem Gambling is growing public health problem. Additional education from educational and health systems experts  can influence on formation of habits and attitudes of people as early age as possible in order to prevent addictive behavior.