This NIDA Mentored Research Scientist Award (K01) provides the foundation for Dr. Renee Cunningham-Wliliams career and research development. Drs. Linda Cottler, Wilson Compton, and Edward Spitznagel, Jr. will provide substantive training to enhance the Applicant's expertise in drug abuse research, behavioral drug pharmacology and clinical issues, and statistics. With this award, the Applicant will be able to apply expertise in these areas to a research project that addresses nosological issues in one of the fastest growing problems co-morbid with drug abuse-pathological gambling. The proposed research project will provide baseline psychometric data on an expanded module of the Diagnostic Interview Schedule (i.e., GAM-IV), designed to evaluate pathological gambling among youth and adults. By doing so, methodological foundations will be established for the PI's future research effort-an epidemiologic study of personal and environmental factors that are associated with co-morbid condition of pathological gambling and drug abuse among persons age 15 and older. Specifically, the Applicant will be able to build upon her previous mental health training and research as well as newly acquired knowledge in drug abuse and problem gambling to conduct a project that has the following seven specific aims: (1) To test the feasibility and acceptability of the new GAM-IV among adults and adolescents recruited from the community and from drug treatment settings; (2) To establish 1-week test-retest reliability estimates of the GAM-IV and to assess its reliability in males vs. females, underage (15-20 year olds) vs. Iegal age gamblers (21-70 year olds), African-Americans vs. Caucasians, urban vs. suburban residents, and persons with comorbid psychiatric and substance abuse problems vs. persons without such problems; (3)To assess concordance by comparing the GAM-IV to the most widely used research tool for predicting problem gambling-The South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS); (4) To evaluate any reasons for low reliability by asking respondents at the end of the retest interview to explain discrepancies between responses given to GAM-IV items at the first and second interviews; (5) To assess concordance rates between self-reports of gambling and collateral informant reports; (6) To improve the GAM-IV based on the results of the data derived from the proposed study; (7) To provide a foundation for launching an independent behavioral science research career by providing important psychometric data for a larger epidemiologic study of the prevalence of gambling and the personal and environmental factors that may predispose or protect underage and legal age gamblers from developing co-morbid pathological gambling problems.
| Cunningham-Williams, Renee M; Gattis, Maurice N; Dore, Peter M et al. (2009) Towards DSM-V: considering other withdrawal-like symptoms of pathological gambling disorder. Int J Methods Psychiatr Res 18:13-22 |
| Sacco, Paul; Cunningham-Williams, Renee M; Ostmann, Emily et al. (2008) The association between gambling pathology and personality disorders. J Psychiatr Res 42:1122-30 |
| Cunningham-Williams, Renee M; Abdallah, Arbi Ben; Callahan, Catina et al. (2007) Problem gambling and violence among community-recruited female substance abusers. Psychol Addict Behav 21:239-43 |
| Cunningham-Williams, Renee M; Hong, Song Iee (2007) A Latent Class Analysis (LCA) of problem gambling among a sample of community-recruited gamblers. J Nerv Ment Dis 195:939-47 |
| Cunningham-Williams, Renee M; Ostmann, Emily L; Spitznagel, Edward L et al. (2007) Racial/ethnic variation in the reliability of DSM-IV pathological gambling disorder. J Nerv Ment Dis 195:551-9 |
| Cunningham-Williams, Renee M; Grucza, Richard A; Cottler, Linda B et al. (2005) Prevalence and predictors of pathological gambling: results from the St. Louis personality, health and lifestyle (SLPHL) study. J Psychiatr Res 39:377-90 |
| Ridenour, Ty A; Cottler, Linda B; Robins, Lee N et al. (2002) Test of the plausibility of adolescent substance use playing a causal role in developing adulthood antisocial behavior. J Abnorm Psychol 111:144-55 |
