Developments in alcoholism treatment research: patient-treatment matching.
This article describes patient-treatment matching, a recent advance in alcoholism treatment research. A general description of the concept is presented and the challenges patient-treatment matching poses for investigators and for treatment providers are described. Project MATCH, a multisite clinical trial designed to test the matching hypothesis is used to illustrate approaches to addressing the research challenge. Two additional avenues of promising patient-treatment matching research, one relating to patient characteristics and the other to pharmacological treatments, are also summarized. The article concludes with a brief prescription for individual providers to implement and test treatment matching strategies in their own clinical practice.
Del Boca
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Department of Psychiatry, University of Connecticut, School of Medicine, Farmington 06030-1410.
Mattson
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ME
D000437:Alcoholism / Q000145:classification / Q000188:drug therapy / Q000628:therapy*; D006801:Humans; D012106:Research