Gambling Harms Scale Initiative

Validated measurement tools for assessing gambling-related harms and recovery

The Gambling Harms Scale Initiative is a major UK-based research programme that’s transforming how we understand and respond to gambling-related harm. Working directly with people affected by gambling, we have developed a suite of comprehensive, person-centered tools for measuring the full range of gambling harms and recovery.

There are three main measurement instruments:

The Gambling Harms Severity Index (GHSI): Encapsulates all the core domains of gambling harm, including financial harms, mental and physical health harms, and relationship harms.

The GHSI for Affected Others (GHSI-AO): Mirroring the GSHI, the GHSI-AO is an instrument designed to specifically capture the harms experienced by people affected by someone else’s gambling.

The Gambling Harms Recovery Index (GHRI): A tool for measuring the recovery of harms from gambling. Having a more holistic perspective than simply measuring abstinence, the GHRI instead encapsulates aspects such as personal insight and behaviour change.

How is the GHSI different to other measurement tools, such as the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI)?

By capturing these experiences in people’s own words and prioritising what matters most to them, the GHSI tools offer a clearer, fairer, and more accurate picture of harm. This helps ensure more useful information for providers of gambling support services, more robust information for researchers, and a clearer picture for data policymakers.

• Co-designed by those with lived experience, support and treatment backgrounds, and academic expertise.
• It turns personal experiences into meaningful data. Harms from gambling are transformed into standardised, interval-level scores—allowing for precise tracking of harm severity and change over time.
• The GHSI has been designed following the tenants of person-centredness and positive psychology, and avoids the pathologisation of gambling.
• It’s grounded in robust science. The GHSI has been developed using rigorous psychometric testing to ensure that it measures gambling harms accurately, reliably, and fairly.
• Through benchmarking to health utility decrements it links to broader health outcomes. Providing healthcare professionals and policy makers alike the ability to better understand how harmful gambling may lead to decrements to health and wellbeing.
• It enables clear comparisons. The GHSI provides a framework for comparing gambling harm across populations, over time, and even compare results with other historic tools such as the PGSI—supporting better evaluation of interventions, services, and policy.

Gambling Harms Framework

The GHSI scales are underpinned by a Holistic Framework of Gambling Harms & Recovery, which was iteratively developed through robust interrogation of academic literature, alongside in-depth qualitative interviews with people who gamble and affected others. Read more about The Framework here.