Improving gambling survey research using dual-frame sampling of landline and mobile phone numbers

Gambling prevalence studies are typically conducted within a single (landline)&nbsp;telephone sampling frame. This practice continues, despite emerging evidence that significant&nbsp;differences exist between landline and mobile (cell) phone only households. This study&nbsp;utilised a dual-frame (landline and mobile) telephone sampling methodology to cast light on&nbsp;the extent of differences across groups of respondents in respect to demographic, health, and&nbsp;gambling characteristics. A total of 2,014 participants from across Australian states and&nbsp;territories ranging in age from 18 to 96 years participated. Interviews were conducted using&nbsp;computer assisted telephone interviewing technology where 1,012 respondents from the&nbsp;landline sampling frame and 1,002 from the mobile phone sampling frame completed a&nbsp;questionnaire about gambling and other health behaviours. Responses across the landline&nbsp;sampling frame, the mobile phone sampling frame, and the subset of the mobile phone&nbsp;sampling frame that possessed a mobile phone only (MPO) were contrasted. The findings&nbsp;revealed that although respondents in the landline sample (62.7 %) did not significantly&nbsp;differ from respondents in the mobile phone sample (59.2 %) in gambling participation in the&nbsp;previous 12 months, they were significantly more likely to have gambled in the previous&nbsp;12 months than the MPO sample (56.4 %). There were no significant differences in internet&nbsp;gambling participation over the previous 12 months in the landline sample (4.7 %), mobile&nbsp;phone sample (4.7 %) and the MPO sample (5.0 %). However, endorsement of lifetime&nbsp;problem gambling on the NODS-CLiP was significantly higher within the mobile sample&nbsp;(10.7 %) and the MPO sample (14.8 %) than the landline sample (6.6 %). Our research&nbsp;supports previous findings that reliance on a traditional landline telephone sampling&nbsp;approach effectively excludes distinct subgroups of the population from being represented inresearch findings. Consequently, we suggest that research best practice necessitates the use&nbsp;of a dual- rame sampling methodology. Despite inherent logistical and cost issues, this&nbsp;approach &nbsp;needs to become the norm in gambling survey research.</span

Gambling treatment service providers’ views about contingency management: A thematic analysis'

BACKGROUND: There is a need to improve retention and outcomes for treatment of problem gambling and gambling disorder. Contingency management (CM) is a behavioural intervention involving identification of target behaviours (such as attendance, abstinence, or steps towards recovery) and the provision of incentives (such as vouchers or credits towards the purchase of preferred items) contingent on objective evidence of these behaviours. Contingency management for abstinence and attendance in substance misuse treatment has a substantial evidence base but has not been widely adopted or extended to other addictive behaviours such as gambling. Potential barriers to the widespread adoption of CM may relate to practitioners’ perceptions about this form of incentive-based treatment. The present study sought to explore United Kingdom (UK) gambling treatment providers’ views of CM for treatment of problem gambling and gambling disorder. METHODS: We conducted semi-structured interviews with 30 treatment providers from across the UK working with people with gambling problems. Participants were provided with an explanation of CM, several hypothetical scenarios, and a structured questionnaire to facilitate discussion. Thematic analysis was used to interpret findings. RESULTS: Participants felt there could be a conflict between CM and their treatment philosophies, that CM was similar in some ways to gambling, and that the CM approach could be manipulated and reduce trust between client and therapist. Some participants were more supportive of implementing CM for specific treatment goals than others, such as for incentivising attendance over abstinence due to perceived difficulties in objectively verifying abstinence. Participants favoured providing credits accruing to services relevant to personal recovery rather than voucher-based incentives. CONCLUSIONS: UK gambling treatment providers are somewhat receptive to CM approaches for treatment of problem gambling and gambling disorder. Potential barriers and obstacles are readily addressable, and more research is needed on the efficacy and effectiveness of CM for gambling. SUPPLEMENTARY INFORMATION: The online version contains supplementary material available at 10.1186/s12954-022-00600-0

Client Views of Contingency Management in Gambling Treatment: A Thematic Analysis

Low levels of treatment access and poor retention among those with gambling problems suggests a need to improve treatment. Contingency management (CM) is a behavioural intervention involving the identification of target behaviours and the provision of incentives when targets are met. There exists a substantial evidence base for CM increasing abstinence and attendance in substance misuse treatment, but this has not been widely extended to gambling treatment setting. This study sought to explore the views of clients about CM for the treatment of problematic and disordered gambling. We conducted semi-structured interviews with 25 gambling treatment clients who were, or had previously been, engaged in treatment in Great Britain. Participants were provided with an explanation of CM, two hypothetical scenarios, and two structured questionnaires to facilitate discussion. Thematic analysis was used to interpret findings. Some participants felt that clients could manipulate CM while in treatment to obtain money to gamble, and that mechanisms of CM could trigger recovering clients into relapse. Participants also identified potential benefits of CM to achieve treatment goals, by enhancing motivation and engagement while in treatment, and helping bring people into treatment earlier. Gambling treatment clients broadly supported the use of incentives for treatment. CM is seen as a facilitator of extended engagement in treatment, and an encouragement for clients to make progress in the treatment process

Photo-catalytic carboxylate to sulfinamide switching delivers a divergent synthesis of sulfonamides and sulfonimidamides

Sulfinamides, sulfonamides, and sulfonimidamides are in-demand motifs in medicinal chemistry, yet methods for the synthesis of alkyl variants that start from simple, readily available feedstocks are scarce. In addition, bespoke syntheses of each class of molecules are usually needed. In this report, we detail the synthesis of these three distinct sulfur functional groups, using readily available and structurally diverse alkyl carboxylic acids as the starting materials. The method harnesses alkyl radical generation from carboxylic acids using acridine photocatalysts and 400 nm light with subsequent radical addition to sulfinylamine reagents, delivering sulfinamide products. Using the N-alkoxy sulfinylamine reagent t-BuO-NSO as the radical trap provides common N-alkoxy sulfinamide intermediates, which can be converted in a divergent manner to either sulfonamides or sulfonimidamides, by treatment with sodium hydroxide, or an amine, respectively. The reactions are scalable, tolerate a broad range of functional groups, and can be used for the diversification of complex biologically active compounds

Bifunctional iminophosphorane catalyzed amide enolization for enantioselective cyclohexadienone desymmetrization.

The organocatalytic enolization of 2-arylacetamides, followed by an enantioselective intramolecular conjugate addition to tethered 2,5-cyclohexadienones, yielding 3D fused N-heterocycles, is described. The transformation represents the first strong activating group-free activation of carboxamides via α-C-H deprotonation in a metal-free, catalytic, and enantioselective reaction, and is achieved by employing a bifunctional iminophosphorane (BIMP) superbase

Prevalence of psychiatric co-morbidity in treatment-seeking problem gamblers:A systematic review and meta-analysis

Objective: The aim of this paper was to systematically review and meta-analyse the prevalence of co-morbid psychiatric disorders (DSM-IV Axis I disorders) among treatment-seeking problem gamblers. Methods: A systematic search was conducted for peer-reviewed studies that provided prevalence estimates of Axis I psychiatric disorders in individuals seeking psychological or pharmacological treatment for problem gambling (including pathological gambling). Meta-analytic techniques were performed to estimate the weighted mean effect size and heterogeneity across studies. Results: Results from 36 studies identified high rates of co-morbid current (74.8%, 95% CI 36.5–93.9) and lifetime (75.5%, 95% CI 46.5–91.8) Axis I disorders. There were high rates of current mood disorders (23.1%, 95% CI 14.9–34.0), alcohol use disorders (21.2%, 95% CI 15.6–28.1), anxiety disorders (17.6%, 95% CI 10.8–27.3) and substance (non-alcohol) use disorders (7.0%, 95% CI 1.7–24.9). Specifically, the highest mean prevalence of current psychiatric disorders was for nicotine dependence (56.4%, 95% CI 35.7–75.2) and major depressive disorder (29.9%, 95% CI 20.5–41.3), with smaller estimates for alcohol abuse (18.2%, 95% CI 13.4–24.2), alcohol dependence (15.2%, 95% CI 10.2–22.0), social phobia (14.9%, 95% CI 2.0–59.8), generalised anxiety disorder (14.4%, 95% CI 3.9–40.8), panic disorder (13.7%, 95% CI 6.7–26.0), post-traumatic stress disorder (12.3%, 95% CI 3.4–35.7), cannabis use disorder (11.5%, 95% CI 4.8–25.0), attention-deficit hyperactivity disorder (9.3%, 95% CI 4.1–19.6), adjustment disorder (9.2%, 95% CI 4.8–17.2), bipolar disorder (8.8%, 95% CI 4.4–17.1) and obsessive-compulsive disorder (8.2%, 95% CI 3.4–18.6). There were no consistent patterns according to gambling problem severity, type of treatment facility and study jurisdiction. Although these estimates were robust to the inclusion of studies with non-representative sampling biases, they should be interpreted with caution as they were highly variable across studies. Conclusions: The findings highlight the need for gambling treatment services to undertake routine screening and assessment of psychiatric co-morbidity and provide treatment approaches that adequately manage these co-morbid disorders. Further research is required to explore the reasons for the variability observed in the prevalence estimates

Faint dwarfs as a test of DM models: WDM vs. CDM

We use high resolution Hydro$+$N-Body cosmological simulations to compare the assembly and evolution of a small field dwarf (stellar mass ~ 10$^{6-7}$ M$\odot$, total mass 10$^{10}$ M$\odot$ in $\Lambda$ dominated CDM and 2keV WDM cosmologies. We find that star formation (SF) in the WDM model is reduced and delayed by 1-2 Gyr relative to the CDM model, independently of the details of SF and feedback. Independent of the DM model, but proportionally to the SF efficiency, gas outflows lower the central mass density through `dynamical heating', such that all realizations have circular velocities $<$ 20kms at 500$~$pc, in agreement with local kinematic constraints. As a result of dynamical heating, older stars are less centrally concentrated than younger stars, similar to stellar population gradients observed in nearby dwarf galaxies. Introducing an important diagnostic of SF and feedback models, we translate our simulations into artificial color-magnitude diagrams and star formation histories in order to directly compare to available observations. The simulated galaxies formed most of their stars in many $\sim$10 Myr long bursts. The CDM galaxy has a global SFH, HI abundance and Fe/H and alpha-elements distribution well matched to current observations of dwarf galaxies. These results highlight the importance of directly including `baryon physics' in simulations when 1) comparing predictions of galaxy formation models with the kinematics and number density of local dwarf galaxies and 2) differentiating between CDM and non-standard models with different DM or power spectra.Comment: 13 pages including Appendix on Color Magnitude Diagrams. Accepted by MNRAS. Added one plot and details on ChaNGa implementation. Reduced number of citations after editorial reques

Iridium-catalysed synthesis of C, N, N -cyclic azomethine imines enables entry to unexplored nitrogen-rich 3D chemical space

Three-dimensional nitrogen-rich bridged ring systems are of great interest in drug discovery owing to their distinctive physicochemical and structural properties. However, synthetic approaches towards N–N-bond-containing bridged heterocycles are often inefficient and require tedious synthetic strategies. Here we delineate an iridium-catalysed reductive approach to such architectures from C, N, N-cyclic hydrazide substrates using IrCl(CO)[P(OPh)3]2 and 1,1,3,3-tetramethyldisiloxane (TMDS), which provided efficient access to the unstabilized and highly reactive C, N, N-cyclic azomethine imine dipoles. These species were stable and isolable in their dimeric form, but, upon dissociation in solution, reacted with a broad range of dipolarophiles in [3 + 2] cycloaddition reactions with high yields and good diastereoselectivities, enabling the direct synthesis of nitrogen-rich sp3-hybridized pyrazoline polycyclic ring systems. Density functional theory calculations were performed to elucidate the origin of the diastereoselectivity of the cycloaddition reaction, and principal moment of inertia (PMI) analysis was conducted to enable visualization of the topological information of the dipolar cycloadducts