Different questionnaires were formulated in order to assess the severity of gambling. The most used questionnaire is the South Oaks Gambling Screen (SOGS), based on DSM-III criteria for gambling, even though it has poor specificity, because overestimates the prevalence of the disorder when used in general population.

Try to overcome SOGS limits using a questionnaire based on DSM-IV criteria for gambling.

Validate the questionnaire based on DSM-IV criteria, using as gold standard the clinical interview developed through the SOGS.

The sample used is formed by 71 subjects, 58 men (81.7%) and 13 women (18.3%), recruited from the Psychiatric Department of Gemelli General Hospital in Rome, who were asked to fill out both questionnaires.

The sensitivity of our questionnaire was 93% (compared to 100% in the SOGS); the specificity was 100% (97.1% in the SOGS). False negatives were 7%, while they were absent in the SOGS ; false positives were absent in the DSM-IV questionnaire, while they were 2.9% in the SOGS.

We also determined the prevalence of each item of DSM-IV questionnaire in all gamblers identified (66 subjects): the most relevant item was “chasing one's losses”(item6), instead the least one was “committing illegal acts such as forgery, fraud, theft, or embezzlement to finance gambling”(item8).

Our data confirm the greater specificity of the questionnaire of DSM-IV criteria for gambling compared to the SOGS. We suggest its use for the identification of gamblers in a sample formed by general population.