Description
We already well know that a gendered approach to research, prevention and treatment is highly relevant in
female health issues; nevertheless, this is rarely considered in mental health too, preventing a better
understanding to female-specific aspects of behavioural addiction and to be more responsive to their
health problems.
Literature and studies on Women and Behavioural Addiction are still scarce, both in Europe and all over the
world; the existing data are often not specific to women but inferred from mostly male samples, also
because of paucity of women reached by the treatment clinics; nevertheless, more and more women are
affected by pathological gambling and other non-substance related addictions, due to environmental
technological pressure and heavy marketing offer.
Women have a crucial role in family and society, and their underestimated gambling or nonsubstance
addictive behaviours, often connected with coping with suffered violence (psychological/physical/economic
violence or abuse), may have a deep impact on their personal, family, and social life. One key issue that
makes women an Invisible population in Health (Wardle 2023) beyond violence and shame, is that women
experience great difficulty in finding appropriate treatment services. Most addiction clinics are not “female
friendly”, and treatment programs very rarely offer female-specific approaches.
That is why it is so important to join our experiences as researchers and clinicians and to gather data from
all over the world to enrich our shared understanding of these issues. This is our goal in our international
female professional network: gather our efforts to compare, discuss and improve research and treatment
for the women on whose behalf we are working on.
Key words: gender approach, women, behavioural addiction, gambling, treatment, research
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