An operational agreement has been signed between the Palermo Polyclinic, the university hospitals of Catania and Messina and the Kore University of Enna for research aimed at understanding pathological gambling in the regional territory. There are two lines of research, which involves the recruitment of patients belonging to psychiatry clinics.
“A transversal observational study – explains Professor Daniele La Barbera, director of the Psychiatry unit of the Polyclinic and member of the 'permanent regional technical table for the prevention of addictions to substances and behaviors' – will concern the risk of problematic gambling in the psychiatric population and its role of attachment styles, impulsivity and emotional dysregulation, and the comparison of the prevalence levels of gambling disorder among patients recruited with the general population. Another study – continues La Barbera – will be aimed at evaluating the effectiveness of an integrated therapeutic protocol, using the neurofeedback method, a procedure through which one learns to modulate and regulate one's central nervous system, for the treatment of patients with gambling disorder.
For the first study, a sample of 791 patients suffering from different disorders is planned: 100 with schizophrenia/other psychoses; 127 with bipolar disorder; 126 with unipolar depression; 138 with Cluster B personality disorders; 200 with substance use disorders and 100 with anxiety disorders.
“Pathological gambling – continues La Barbera – is a psychiatric disorder which is one of the so-called behavioral addictions which can have serious economic and family consequences. This disorder has some characteristic traits in common with drug addiction, including alterations in brain functioning which today can be treated with innovative machinery, such as neurofeedback, a non-invasive and generally comfortable procedure, which modifies some underlying neurophysiological aspects. of behavioral addictions".
