Announcement: Student Receives Inaugural Gambling Treatment Award
A UWindsor PhD candidate has received funding from the Ontario Problem Gambling Research Centre to examine why some problem gamblers quit addiction treatment programs and return to gambling.
Kevin Gomes, a PhD student in clinical psychology, was awarded the inaugural G. Ron Frisch scholarship award, which will give the student $25,000 research funding per year for three years while he works to complete his doctoral degree.
Gomes said problem gamblers drop out of treatment programs at a rate of about 50 percent and that a better understanding of variables to predict drop-out rates can inform treatment options that are tailored to individual client needs.
Previous research indicates that good treatment results are often predictable based on the availability of social support and motivation for change, Gomes said, while drop-outs tend to reflect such circumstances as depression and stress.
“Problem gambling is where alcoholism was 50 or 60 years ago,” says Dr. Ron Frisch, the scholarship’s namesake and a Psychology Professor Emeritus at UWindsor’s Problem Gambling Research Group. “It’s a relatively new social problem and we’re trying to better understand the dynamics associated with it so that we can ultimately treat it better.”
Gomes is a native of Vancouver and did his undergraduate degree at Simon Fraser University. He will spend the next year at the Problem Gambling Treatment Services Centre on Ottawa Street to better understand how current treatment services are delivered.
