More generally, our data suggest that patients with bipolar disorder who are at risk of problem gambling are likely to be younger and to have an earlier illness onset than patients at low risk, and also are more likely to work in service industries or be unemployed. In contrast to previous studies in the general population and in bipolar disorder which have shown a higher prevalence of problem gambling in men compared with women,3,10 no gender difference was observed. Therefore, gambling problems may be relatively common in women with bipolar disorder in the UK. Alcohol misuse in this bipolar disorder sample was significantly more prevalent among men than women (40% v. 29%, P = 0.02) as would be expected from UK general population prevalence figures,21 suggesting that the lack of expected gender difference is specific to gambling rather than a general predilection towards addiction among the women in our sample.
