Swansea University
Swansea University were awarded £299,971 to develop new and better ways of identifying and supporting Veterans whose lives are impacted by harmful gambling.
Their research has shown that UK Armed Forces Veterans are up to ten times more likely to experience gambling harm than members of the general population, with experience of gambling often beginning during their Service.
Little is known about what can trigger harmful gambling, including whether there are any triggers specific to military Service. The Look Back to Move Forward project has been developed to help adapt a new timeline assessment of gambling, alcohol use and mental health challenges in Veterans who have recently left Service. This includes looking at when challenges began and charting their progress through treatment.
The project is co-produced with Veterans, and it is hoped this will lead to new protocols, research evaluations and a system-wide change in the help and support available for those with complex addiction needs. The University is also working with partners including Adferiad Recovery, NHS Veterans’ Wales and others to recruit suitable Veterans to the project – those who have left the Services in the last two years and identify as having faced challenges around gambling, alcohol or mental health related harm.
Adferiad Recovery will provide an emotional and social support package for all participating Veterans, ensuring they are not adversely harmed by their participation.
The University knows that more awareness is needed of the complexity of these issues. They say that those who are aware of gambling-related help criticise it for merely focusing on financial management rather than including issues around guilt, depression, self-harm, and relationship problems. This all feeds into the new timeline assessment they wish to establish.
Currently the project has three systematic reviews underway. A review into current assessment methods for harmful gambling among military Veterans is looking to establish how gambling behaviour and related harms are assessed among Veterans and serving populations.
A second review is looking into how prevalent Timeline Follow Back (TLFB), a structured questionnaire and clinical research tool, is in measuring gambling behaviour, and how it is most used.
Finally, a third review is looking at the validity and reliability of Gambling Timeline Follow Back (G-TLFB) and how applicable this is to Veterans and their experiences.
In addition to these reviews of the literature several focus groups have been completed with Veterans to ascertain their thoughts and experiences in relation to first-line assessment processes. During these groups Veterans shared their previous experiences of assessment processes and content, as well as detailing how they think future assessment tools should be created, including content, delivery methods and routes of service provision.
The University plans to create a validated Veteran-specific assessment measure, informed by the findings from the three reviews and the lived experiences of Veterans within the focus group study. Alongside this will be a treatment monitoring tool, which can be used within Veteran populations to promote help-seeking behaviour, early identification, and intervention for gambling related harms.
Early findings show the need for a Veteran-specific gambling timeline assessment and the potential impact such a tool might have.