Interventions that target school-based gambling may be needed to stem the problem of wagering on school grounds, according to a Yale-led study.
About 40 percent of 1,988 high school students surveyed in Connecticut said they gambled at school in the prior 12 months. Those students were more likely to report poorer academic achievement and more permissive attitudes toward gambling behaviors, according to an article about the study published in the journal Addictive Behaviors.
“The findings suggest that it is important to school-based efforts to increase the awareness of (gambling at school) among adolescents such that teachers, students, families, educators, pediatricians, and other professionals may appropriately intervene,” the article states.
Of the 790 students who reported gambling on school grounds, 650 were male and 140 were female. Most students came from two-parent households, and most said their parents neither approved nor disapproved of their activities.
The authors of the study affiliated with the Yale Department of Psychiatry were Dawn Foster, PhD, MPH, assistant professor of psychiatry; Marc Potenza, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and director of the Center of Excellence in Gambling Research; Rani Hoff, PhD, MPH, professor of psychiatry; Suchitra Krishnan-Sarin, PhD, professor of psychiatry, and Yvonne Yau, MSc, post-graduate associate.