The Pave Project Report - Queen's University Belfast

The PAVE Project Report 203
6.5. DISCUSSION
The effectiveness of voluntary sector services was explored using a time-series design
in which participants were asked to complete the research inventory on up to 4
occasions with intervals of 3-4 months between assessments. The inventory was
designed to assess general psychological health, levels of depression, and PTSD
symptom severity. In addition, we sought to establish which services had been
received and which significant life events had been experienced in the interval
between each of the assessments. In total, 75 participants took part in the baseline
assessment (A1), 25 took part in the second assessment (A2), 20 took part in the third
assessment (A3), and 13 participants responded to the fourth assessment (A4).
Twenty individuals responded to lengthy semi-structured interviews. This means that
in total 133 assessments and 20 interviews were carried out.
This was the first multi-method, quantitative and qualitative, study that explored the
effectiveness of voluntary sector services for victims of the Troubles in Northern
Ireland. The amount of data collected allowed for a detailed analysis of how services
delivered by the voluntary sector affect individuals who remain traumatized up to
nearly 40 years after they had experienced traumatic events, i.e., events that took
place anytime between the beginning of the Troubles in 1969 and the date of data
collection for this research (2005-06).
We found that overall during the assessment period (9-12 months), psychological
health and levels of depression improved significantly for participants. The same was