A systematic mapping of nordic gambling research 2000–2015: current status and suggested future directions

There has been an increased research focus on gambling in the Nordic countries since the turn of the century. This paper provides a first systematic mapping of Nordic gambling research published between 2000 and 2015. Eleven international, ten Nordic bibliographic e-databases, and Google Scholar were systematically searched, with 382 records fulfilling the study inclusion criteria. Of the records identified in the international and Nordic databases, most had a first author from a Finnish institution (n = 70), followed by Norway (n = 57), Sweden (n = 55), Denmark (n = 45) and Iceland (n = 5). The majority of the studies represented prevalence research (38.8%), focusing on gambling behavior or problem gambling and various explanatory factors, while limited focus has been on prevention, treatment and service-focused research. Methodologically, the majority of the identified studies (39.7%) analyzed population samples/cohorts or other cross-sectional samples, with many of the studies also applying review approaches or presenting cases such as the regulatory system in a country (28.3%). The scientific disciplines most frequently represented were social and public health sciences. The findings highlight research areas that have received less focus – e.g. only one example of a longitudinal project looking into factors associated with a problem gambling development, and the need for increased resources channeled into the translation of available evidence into coordinated prevention- (e.g. problem gambling prevention in school-settings) and service-focused (e.g. through randomized, controlled treatment trials) research initiatives. The findings should be considered in the coordination of future Nordic research.