Problem gambling within sexual and gender minorities: A systematic review.

A body of literature now suggests that sexual and gender minorities (SGMs) experience a distinct set of stressors in the form of minority stress, which may function as a risk factor for the development of negative psychological and behavioral health outcomes. A systematic review of the literature was conducted through June 1st, 2022. Inclusion was limited to peer-reviewed publications in academic journals, with prospective and retrospective studies of a quantitative nature included for synthesis. Articles were required to contain an empirical measure of gambling cognitions, behaviors, motives, or outcomes. Studies that did not include sexual minorities within the sample or did not provide quantitative results which shed light on gambling in sexual minorities were excluded from the present review.In total, 12 eligible studies were identified for the current review. In general, this review highlighted methodological weaknesses within the literature and suggested that little is known about gambling in this population. Given conflicting findings across studies, further research is necessary to understand gambling in sexual and gender minorities. From a methodological standpoint, there is a need for clearer conceptualization and standardized measurement of gambling-related variables in vulnerable populations. Further, longitudinal research would be beneficial to understand the nuances of gambling disorder across sexual orientations and gender identities, as well as aid in the development of holistic intervention options that meet the needs of these more vulnerable groups.

Anxiety and Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder: A Systematic Review.

The inclusion of the novel diagnosis of Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder in the forthcoming 11th edition of the International Classification of Diseases has spurred increasing interest in the clinical profile of the disorder. Such attention has included a focus on potential comorbidities, risk factors, or symptoms resulting from such behaviors, including anxiety. Anxiety disorders have long been noted as comorbid with many other diagnoses, such as posttraumatic stress disorder, obsessive compulsive disorder, and substance use disorders. This review aims to understand the relationship between anxiety and compulsive sexual behavior in adults and adolescents, based on available quantitative studies. A search of PsycInfo and PubMed revealed 40 studies which quantitatively assessed a relationship between an anxiety measure and a Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder measure, including dissertations and published articles using clinical and community samples. A qualitative synthesis and risk of bias analysis of the studies was conducted, rather than a meta-analysis, due to the variety of methods. Overall, studies were primarily cross-sectional and the relationship between these two constructs was unclear, likely due to several factors, including inconsistent measurement of Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder, lack of gender diversity, and very little longitudinal data. Directions for future research are discussed.

Religiousness and Sexual Values Predict Sexual Incongruence: Results from a U.S. Nationally Representative Study.

The present work aimed to clarify commonly endorsed sexual values in the general U.S. population as well as the association between sexual values and incongruence. Study 1 recruited adults (N = 923; 51.8% women; Mage = 35.5, SD = 10.8) to answer a free response question about sexual values via Amazon's Mechanical Turk, while Study 2 posed the same question to a weighted, nationally representative U.S. sample (N = 2,519; 51.4% women; Mage = 48.2, SD = 17.8). Data collection was completed in 2017 and 2019, respectively. Results from these cross-sectional studies demonstrated that, although religiousness predicted sexual incongruence, conservative sexual values predicted variance in sexual incongruence, over and above the effects of religiousness.

Sexual addiction 25 years on: A systematic and methodological review of empirical literature and an agenda for future research.

In 1998, Gold and Heffner authored a landmark review in Clinical Psychology Review on the topic of sexual addiction that concluded that sexual addiction, though increasingly popular in mental health settings, was largely based on speculation, with virtually no empirical basis. In the more than two decades since that review, empirical research around compulsive sexual behaviors (which subsumes prior research about sexual addiction) has flourished, ultimately culminating in the inclusion of a novel diagnosis of Compulsive Sexual Behavior Disorder in the eleventh edition of the World Health Organization's International Classification of Diseases. The present work details a systematic review of empirical research published between January 1st, 1995 and August 1st, 2020 related to compulsive sexual behaviors, with a specific focus on evaluating the methodologies of that literature. This review yielded 371 papers detailing 415 individual studies. In general, the present review finds that, although research related to compulsive sexual behaviors has proliferated, much of this work is characterized by simplistic methodological designs, a lack of theoretical integration, and an absence of quality measurement. Moreover, the present review finds a virtual absence of high-quality treatment-related research published within this time frame. Implications of these findings for both clinical practice and future research are discussed.