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Gordon Moody has published its ‘Insights Report’ for the first half of 2023/2024, providing a detailed overview of its efforts to deliver localised therapy and treatment for victims of problem gambling.
The report aims to provide UK stakeholders with an understanding of the day-to-day dynamics impacting problem gambling interventions and treatments, which Gordon Moody has offered since 1971.
The charity details significant progress in the reach and effectiveness of its interventions, reporting a 10% increase in applications (481 patients) compared to the previous year.
The report underscored the ‘evolving make-up‘ of patients receiving treatment by gender, age, and ethnic origin, showing trends and changes over time. Regarding gender, 76% of applications were male, 23% female, and 1% transgender or other.
Mirroring wider UK problem gambling trends, Gordon Moody saw the age group of 24-34 as the largest segment of applicants. However, the charity underlined improved reach and effectiveness with younger audiences as applications in the age range of 18-24 had grown to 8%.
Of significance to researchers, Gordon Moody provided insights into the employment status of applicants, which once more displayed the pervasive nature of gambling issues, impacting all societal segments.
The statement was underscored as data detailed that 57% of applicants were in employment, whilst 16% were unemployed. 20% of applicants were classified as ‘disabled or long-term ill’, whilst 1% were students and 1% in full-time care.
The report identified pre-treatment complexities for patients applying for treatment services, including mental health challenges, substance misuse and criminal backgrounds.
Of concern, period reporting detailed that while patients reported a drop in drug and alcohol misuse, those committing criminal offences had increased by over 150%.
On improving pre-treatment, Gordon Moody cited the importance of tailored intervention strategies, in which it increased one-to-one pretreatment support sessions by over 68% in the first half of the year.
Treatment programmes provided by Gordon Moody indexed an average improvement of 18 points in the Problem Gambling Severity Index (PGSI) score for residential programmes and 16 for Retreat & Counselling (R&C), with both programmes maintaining low scores post-treatment.
Applying a CORE-10 basis, scores improved by 14 points in residential and 11 in R&C treatments, above the national averages reported by the National Gambling Treatment Service (GambleAware) for 2019/20, which were 12 for PGSI and 8 for CORE-10.
In 2023/24, a total of 1,172 attendees participated in aftercare sessions at Gordon Moody, which included 771 one-to-one sessions and 44 group sessions. The average duration of engagement in aftercare was 199 days.
Concluding its report, Gordon Moody highlighted the importance of post-treatment aftercare engagement with recovering patients, emphasising the critical role of ongoing care for effective recovery of gambling addiction.
