Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Research Article

Correlates of At-risk Gambling Behaviors of Homeless Youth

¹Faculty of Medicine (Addiction Program), Université de Sherbrooke (Longueuil Campus), 150 Place Charles-Le Moyne, Suite 200, Longueuil QCJ4K 0A8 Canada

²Mc Gill University, Clinical Epidemiology Room A118, Jewish General Hospital 3755, Chemin de la Côte Ste-Catherine, Montréal, Qc, Canada

³Département de Psycho Education et de Psychologie, Université du Québec en Outaouais, 283 boul. Alexandre-Taché, Gatineau (Qc), J8x 3X7, Canada

Corresponding Author:

Magali Dufour
Faculty of Medicine (Addiction Program)
Université de Sherbrooke (Longueuil Campus)
150 Place Charles-Le Moyne, Suite 200, Longueuil QC, J4K 0A8, Canada
Tel: +1 450-463-1835
E-mail: Magali.Dufour@usherbrooke.ca

Received date: January 10, 2014; Accepted date: April 28, 2014; Published date: April 30, 2014

Citation: Dufour M, Roy E, Boivin JF, Boudreau JF, Robert M (2014) Correlates of At-risk Gambling Behaviors of Homeless Youth. J Addict Res Ther S10:007. doi:10.4172/2155-6105.S10-007

Copyright: © 2014 Dufour M, et al. This is an open-access article distributed under the terms of the Creative Commons Attribution License, which permits unrestricted use, distribution, and reproduction in any medium, provided the original author and source are credited.

Objective: This exploratory study aims to describe the gambling behaviors of 419 homeless youth.

Methods: Participants were divided into two groups: 1) those whose gambling behaviors did not present a risk (n=366); and 2) those whose gambling behaviors presented a risk (n=53).

Results: In this homeless youth cohort, 12.6% exhibited gambling behaviors that could be considered at-risk. Compared to youth not having at-risk gambling behavior, youth with at-risk gambling behaviors were more likely to be male and be born outside of Canada. The at-risk participants were three times more likely to have a diagnosis of mental health disorder and two times more likely to report criminal activities as their main source of income.

Conclusions: These findings underline the importance of addressing all at-risk behaviors engaged in by homeless youth.

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