Study shows gambling addiction in Sweden linked to increased risk of long-term sick leave
Swedish study shows problem gamblers take more than 90 days off work the year they are diagnosed
A new study published in Psychological Medicine, by Cambridge University Press, has found that gambling addiction can increase the risk of long-term sick leave by up to 89%.
The research, mainly funded by healthcare provider Region Stockholm and Swedish research council Forte, used several national registers to study 2,830 individuals aged between 19 and 62 who had been diagnosed with a gambling addiction and explored their sick leave over six years.
This six-year period was within a larger time frame of 2005 to 2018 and focussed on the three years before a person’s diagnosis and the three years after.
Comparing the group of 2,830 individuals to 28,300 people who had not been diagnosed with a gambling addiction, the findings showed that people with a gambling addiction would be absent from work for sickness-related reasons for more than 90 days annually in the year they were diagnosed, with a hefty 89% higher chance of being on long-term sick leave.
Viktor Månsson, the study’s author and researcher at the Department of Clinical Neuroscience, Karolinska Institutet, highlighted the importance of work for individuals, stating that being able to work is vital to mental and financial recovery from gambling-related harm.
Månsson said: “The study shows that we need to detect gambling problems at an earlier stage in healthcare and at workplaces and increase access to help for affected people so that they can break negative trajectories earlier.
“Gambling addiction risks [are] going unnoticed, and the problems can become extensive before they are noticed and diagnosed in healthcare, something that this study shows.”
Yasmina Molero, a second study author and researcher at Karolinska Institutet, added: “As gambling addiction is often a long-term problem, it will also be important to follow people over an even longer period, for example up to 10 years, to find out more about the long-term consequences for those affected and their environment.”