Deborah Louise Sinclair

Biography: Dr. Deborah Louise Sinclair is a postdoctoral fellow in the College of Nursing at the University of Saskatchewan, Prince Albert Campus. Dr. Sinclair is registered as a Research Psychologist and Counsellor with the Health Professions Council of South Africa. Her work focuses on the intersection of substance use disorders and behavioural addictions, framed within a recovery-oriented paradigm, with particular interests in substitute addictions and problematic gambling. A list of Deborah Sinclair’s publications can be found here: https://www.researchgate.net/profile/Deborah-Sinclair-2/research

Node Funded Project (Apr 2026)

Title: Multiple addictions amid problematic gambling: A scoping review to inform provider education in Saskatchewan

Principal Investigators: Deborah Sinclair

Co-investigators/collaborators: Dr. Geoffrey Maina

Description: Multiple addictions, where an individual has more than one substance or co-occurring behavioural addiction, have implications for recovery outcomes, but remain especially poorly understood among people who gamble problematically. A landmark Alberta, Canadian survey (Konkolÿ Thege et al., 2016) provided foundational evidence that multiple addictions were common in a sample of 6000 adults (21%) and that gambling frequently occurs within broader patterns of addictive behaviours. Given that multiple addictions interact to heighten relapse risk (Carnes et al., 2005) and that gambling harms can typically extend to six more people (Goodwin et al., 2017), gambling-specific co-occurrence patterns warrant closer examination to improve recovery outcomes, as concurrent patterns may suggest increased risk of gambling relapse. To move the field forward, this study seeks to systematically synthesize the literature on problematic gambling, multiple addictions, and relapse with attention to clinical implications.

Objectives:

• To conduct a scoping review to map the extant literature on multiple addictions in people
  who gamble problematically, with particular attention to relapse and clinical care, public
  health, and provider education implications.
• To translate these findings into evidence-informed webinars supporting clinical practice and
  strengthening capacity via an online symposium.