Analysis of the Impact of Treatment from the National Gambling Treatment Service for Tier 3 interventions.

Overview

The recent PHE gambling harms evidence review [1] identified that there are substantial gaps in the evidence base, and no consensus among stakeholders, on how to prevent and reduce gambling-related harms. They have specifically identified a lack of longitudinal data on gambling harms including harms to affected others.

A recent study by King’s College London of the PGSI and Core-10 outcomes of gambling treatment clients at initial assessment and treatment end (Hickman et al, 2021) demonstrated that gambling treatment had a significant impact on both impact measures, but variability was identified in both how treatment impacted clients over time and also how individual items in the Core-10 and PGSI were impacted by treatment. One of the identified limitations identified of this research was that the data examined included outcome measures only at the start and end of treatment.

GambleAware have commissioned Myriad Research to conduct a Longitudinal Analysis of the Impact of Treatment from the National Gambling Treatment Service (NGTS) for Tier 3 interventions. The project aims to examine the impact of treatment on both outcome measures over the entire treatment journey.

This piece of analysis began in November 2021and findings are expected to be disseminated in early summer 2022.

The Analysis

To address the research gap identified above, the NGTS Analysis work will examine all treatment episodes across the NGTS that qualified for inclusion in the Data Reporting Framework (DRF) with a referral and completion date between 1^st April 2018 and 31^st March 2021.

This work aims to provide evidence of:

1. How treatment impacts PGSI and Core 10 scores over time (attended treatment sessions)
2. The most effective minimum number of attended treatment sessions

In addition, it will provide evidence of:

3. How treatment naivety (first time in treatment) affects the impact of treatment on Core 10 and PGSI measures
4. Whether the number of days between treatment sessions has an impact on their effectiveness
5. Whether the proportion of non-attended treatment sessions affects the impact of treatment on Core 10 and PGSI measures
6. Whether individual items in the PGSI and Core 10 are impacted by treatment at different rates

Methods

Analysis of longitudinal treatment data will be conducted using statistical methods. An iterative approach will be followed to ensure the most suitable statistical methods are used for this piece of analysis.

[1] https://www.gov.uk/government/publications/gambling-related-harms-evidence-review/gambling-related-harms-evidence-review-summary