engleski

Youth Gambling in Croatia: How counseling experience elicited national research and preventive interventions

Working with youth at risk, or with developed behavioural problems, is always a professional challenge that requires constant lifelong learning and professional development. In recent years Croatian mental health professionals were faced with new risk behaviour, its specific manifestation and consequences - youth gambling. Changes in the gambling market and widespread availability of gambling activities enabled young people to gamble, even though they are not allowed to do so until 18 years of age. All of this elicited a need for scientific answers to some questions and evidence-based interventions. Therefore, in 2010 we started a national project Youth Gambling in Croatia that was funded by Croatian Lottery, Croatian Ministry of Science, Education and Sport and Croatian Teacher Training Agency. Prevalence study in the project included a representative sample of 2.700 high-school students from 7 Croatian towns and 254 students from the University of Zagreb, while 250 high-school students participated in the implementation of the first Croatian culturally specific evidence-based gambling prevention program “Who really wins?”. Project team created this gambling prevention program in 2012 based on scientific results and standards of preventions science, after which the program was implemented and evaluated in 2013. This presentation will review developmental stages of the project within a specific Croatian context and pinpoint some major findings on gambling prevalence, correlates for developing adverse psychosocial consequences as well as the results of prevention program short-term evaluation.

gambling; youth; sports betting; risk behaviour

nije evidentirano