Stress has long been implicated in relation to problem gambling and gambling disorder. However, less is known about the psychological processes that link stress to problem gambling through other known correlates, including outcome expectancies and maladaptive coping. The current study tests a moderated mediation model whereby the effect of stress on problem gambling was hypothesized to be mediated by escape outcome expectancies, with this mediation effect moderated by maladaptive coping. Participants (N = 240; 50.2% male, M_age = 32.76 years; SD_age = 11.35 years) were recruited from an online crowdsourcing platform and provided responses on the Depression, Anxiety and Stress Scale (DASS-21; Lovibond & Lovibond, 1995), the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI; Ferris & Wynne, 2001), escape subscale of the Gambling Outcome Expectancies Scale (GOES; Flack & Morris, 2015) and the Brief COPE (Carver, 1997). The model was tested using Hayes’ (2018) PROCESS macro, revealing a significant moderated mediation effect of the stress-escape path by maladaptive coping, showing that the effect was significant when maladaptive coping was high. The findings provide support for escape outcome expectancies as being a potential mechanism through which the stress-problem gambling relationship may operate specifically, influenced by how gamblers are engaged in maladaptive coping generally. There is a need to further investigate the potential for combining gambling outcome expectancy challenges with methods to reduce maladaptive coping or develop more adaptive responses in the face of stress among problem gamblers.

长期以来，压力一直与问题赌博和赌博障碍有关。然而，人们对通过其他已知的相关因素（包括结果预期和适应不良的应对方式）将压力与问题赌博联系起来的心理过程知之甚少。目前的研究测试了一个有调节的中介模型，该模型假设压力对问题赌博的影响是由逃避结果预期介导的，而这种中介效应是由适应不良的应对方式调节的。参与者（N = 240；50.2% 男性，M_年龄= 32.76 岁；SD_年龄= 11.35 岁）是从在线众包平台招募的，并提供了抑郁、焦虑和压力量表的回答（DASS-21；Lovibond & Lovibond，1995 ）、问题赌博严重性指数（PGSI；Ferris & Wynne，2001）、赌博结果预期量表的逃逸子量表（GOES；Flack & Morris，2015）和简要 COPE（Carver，1997）。该模型使用Hayes（2018）的PROCESS宏进行了测试，揭示了适应不良应对对压力逃避路径的显着调节中介作用，表明当适应不良应对较高时，该效果显着。这些发现为逃避结果预期提供了支持，认为它是一种潜在机制，压力与问题赌博关系可以通过该机制具体运作，并受到赌徒一般如何进行适应不良应对的影响。有必要进一步研究将赌博结果预期挑战与减少适应不良的应对方法或在问题赌徒面临压力时制定更具适应性的反应的方法相结合的可能性。