A nationwide case-control study on cardiovascular and respiratory- related disorders in patients with gambling disorder in Sweden

Objectives: We aimed to examine potential relationships and gender differences between cardiovascular disease (CVD), diabetes, obesity, respiratory-related disorders, and gambling disorder (GD). We hypothesized that (1) GD patients would be more likely than controls to have CVD, diabetes, obesity, and respiratory-related diseases; and (2) females with GD would be more likely than men with GD to have CVD, diabetes, obesity, and respiratory-related diseases. Study design: National retrospective case-control study.Methods: We used data from the Swedish National Board of Health and Welfare between 2005 and 2019. A total of 10,766 patients were included, and 3592 of them had GD. Every GD patient was matched with two age-and gender-matched controls. Patient data, including the history of medical diagnoses, were extracted. Descriptive statistics, Chi-squared and Fisher's exact tests were used to compare GD patients and controls.Results: GD patients had a higher prevalence of CVD and respiratory-related disorders than controls. Diabetes rates were 5% for GD patients and 2% for controls; CVD (18% vs 12%); respiratory-related disease (7% vs 4%); and obesity (7% vs 3%). Women with a diagnosis of GD have a higher prevalence of obesity and somatic comorbidities other than diabetes compared to men.Conclusions: This is the largest case-control study conducted to date showing GD patients have a higher prevalence of CVD, diabetes, obesity, and respiratory-related disorders than controls. Women with GD appear to be more susceptible than men to CVD, obesity, and respiratory-related disorders; however, this may be partially explained by differences in help-seeking behavior. Thus, our findings highlight the importance of early identification of GD patients who may also have somatic conditions requiring treatment. This can be accomplished by implementing a screening program for GD, CVD, diabetes, obesity, and respiratory-related disorders, and by including healthy lifestyle management strategies.(c) 2023 The Author(s). Published by Elsevier Ltd on behalf of The Royal Society for Public Health. This is an open access article under the CC BY license (http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/).