Working paper: the relationship between substance use disorder and gambling disorder: a health registry study.

Few studies have examined the relationship between substance use disorders and gambling disorder using population health registry data. The aim of the study was to examine the temporal relationship between patients receiving gambling disorder (GD; code F63.0 in International Classification of Disorders-10: ICD-10) and/or substance use disorders (SUD; code F10-F19 in ICD-10) treatment.

The variables, consisting of number of patients (18 years or older) and year of first GD and/or SUD diagnosis/treatment between the years 2008-2017, were retrieved from the Norwegian Patient Registry.

Among 151,144 patients, 2.9% received GD treatment and/or 97.7% received SUD. Among these, 987 patients (0.6%) received treatment for both disorders. In all, 4,012 GD patients received GD treatment the same year or before onset of SUD. Among these, 84.8% received only GD treatment, 10.0% received SUD treatment the same year, whereas 5.2% received SUD treatment one year or more after onset of GD. A total of 147,534 SUD patients received SUD treatment the same year or before onset of GD. Among these, 99.5% received SUD treatment only, 0.3% received GD treatment the same year whereas 0.2% received GD treatment one year or more after onset of SUD.

Results show a higher incidence of GD or SUD treatment among those who already receive the other treatment compared to incidence of GD or SUD treatments in the general Norwegian population. Receiving treatment of the other disorder also depends on the nature of the first disorder. Only a fraction of SUD patients (0.5%) received GD treatment whereas 10% and 5% of GD patients received SUD treatment the same year or 1-4 years after GD onset, respectively.

It is concluded that treatment of one addictive disorder increases the risk of treatment of another addictive disorder. In addition, SUD is more common among GD patients than GD among SUD patients.