Is an e-mental health programme a viable way to reach affected others of disordered gamblers? A feasibility study focusing on access and retention

ABSTRACT

Although affected family members (AFMs) of disordered gamblers suffer from highly stressful living conditions and are in need of specialized help, access to and knowledge of professional support is limited. To improve this situation, an e-mental health programme called EfA with one information module and five consecutive training modules was developed. The study investigated (1) promotion of and referral to EfA, (2) duration of visits and conversion rate, and (3) participants’ characteristics and retention in EfA. In 9 months, 6357 visits were counted. Most visitors arrived at the website via direct access. Those using search terms most commonly used phrases that were used in promotional materials. Per month, 16.1 new potential participants registered. The final sample consisted of 126 participants, most of them female, with high daily Internet usage and low use of prior professional support or self-help. More than one-third finished all modules. This is the first time that data on an e-mental health programme for this clientele was collected in Germany. Findings imply the importance of promoting such a programme in order to reach a clientele that has not had prior help and also show that it is a viable way to reach AFMs.

KEYWORDS:

• Family
• intervention
• mental health
• self-help
• pathological gambling

Acknowledgements

Results reported in this article are part of the PhD thesis of Ursula Gisela Buchner.

Conflicts of interest

Competing interests

The State of Bavaria provides gambling services (lotteries, sports betting and casino games) within the State gambling monopoly via the State Lottery Administration. The State also supervises the control over public and private gambling opportunities.

Constraints on publishing

The authors declcared no constraints on publishing.

Additional information

Funding

Funding for U.B. and A.K. was provided as an unrestricted grant by the Bavarian State Ministry of Public Health and Care Services with funds from the Bavarian State Ministry of Finance, Regional Development and Regional Identity in the context of the Bavarian Coordination Center for Gambling Issues (LSG Bayern).

Notes on contributors

Ursula Gisela Buchner

Ursula Gisela Buchner, psychologist, is a professor of health psychology at the German University of Health & Sport in Ismaning, Germany, since 2017. Before that she worked for nine years as a research assistant at the Bavarian Academy for Addiction and Health Issues (BAS), Munich, Germany. She received her doctoral degree in psychology at the Otto-Friedrich-University, Bamberg, Germany. Her research interests include gambling disorders and family members affected by addictions.

Annalena Koytek

Annalena Koytek, psychologist, is a research assistant at the Bavarian Academy for Addiction and Health Issues (BAS), Munich, Germany, since 2008. Her research interests include alcohol misuse in young people and gambling disorders.

Norbert Wodarz

Norbert Wodarz, MD, is a psychiatrist and professor of psychiatry at the University of Regensburg. He is head of the Center of Addiction Medicine at the Dept. of Psychiatry and Psychotherapy at the Bezirksklinikum, University of Regensburg, since 1999. His research interests are the neurobiology and the genetics of addiction, as well as improvement of therapeutic strategies for subjects with an addictive disorder and affected others.

Jörg Wolstein

Jörg Wolstein, MD, is a psychiatrist and professor of pathopsychology at the University of Bamberg, Germany since 2007. His research interests are alcohol misuse prevention in adolescents, drinking motives, short interventions, and behavioural addictions.