The South Oaks Gambling Screen Revised for Adolescents (SOGS-RA): Further Psychometric Findings from a Community Sample

The broad expansion of gambling across North America during the last two decades has generated concern about the extent of gambling and problem gambling in youth, and the need to more accurately monitor it. The South Oaks Gambling Screen-Revised for Adolescents (SOGS-RA) is a promising instrument for screening problem gambling (Winters, Stinchfield, & Fulkerson, 1993) that requires more evaluation. Accordingly, further psychometric analysis of the instrument was conducted as part of a community survey of gambling in a sample of 1,000 male and female youth, aged 12 to 17 years. The analyses extended previous focus by including females, young adolescents, and an evaluation of youth classified as at-risk. Consistent with preliminary findings obtained during scale development, the distribution of item endorsement revealed trends of over-endorsement for some items (e.g., gambled more than intended, felt bad about the amount bet), and under-endorsement for others (e.g., criticized or told you had a gambling problem). These results suggest consideration of some form of weighting procedure, item deletion or re-wording. A factor analysis of the SOGS-RA items suggested a two-factor solution, with one factor interpreted as Control over Gambling and the other Gambling Consequences. It is proposed that the two factors may represent early versus more severe levels of gambling problems, respectively. The results highlight the need for further psychometric evaluation and refinement of instruments used to identify gambling problems in young people.