title: Contemporaneous relationship between substance abuse treatment and poly-substance use: evidence from the Persistent Effect of Treatment Studies.
abstract: Data from the Persistent Effect of Treatment Studies (PETS) are used to explore the relationship between duration of substance use treatment and simultaneous poly-substance using behaviors. Studying such contemporaneous relationships is especially important given the chronic nature of the substance-using population (McLellan, 2002) in the PETS study. Data were collected at intake to treatment programs and follow-up interviews were performed periodically at treatment program sites. One of the features of the analysis was the development of a poly-substance scale to measure multiple substance use. Multilevel models were implemented to examine the relationship between three levels of care (i.e., intensive outpatient, outpatient, and residential) and simultaneous poly-substance use. Contemporaneous effects of treatment were obtained such that higher duration of treatment was associated with drops in substance-using behaviors. This result supports the need for sustaining treatment for a population of chronic substance abusers.
authors.affiliation: Westat, Rockville, MD 20850, USA. SanjeevSridharan@westat.com
authors.forename: Sanjeev
authors.initials: S
authors.lastname: Sridharan
authors.forename: Jennifer H
authors.initials: JH
authors.lastname: Kawata
authors.forename: Bernadette
authors.initials: B
authors.lastname: Campbell
authors.forename: Ching-Wei Margaret
authors.initials: CW
authors.lastname: Tseng
mesh_terms: D000328:Adult; D002908:Chronic Disease; D005260:Female; D005500:Follow-Up Studies; D006801:Humans; D008297:Male; D008605:Mental Health Services; D020377:Self Efficacy; D019966:Substance-Related Disorders / Q000145:classification* / Q000534:rehabilitation*; D013695:Temperance; D016896:Treatment Outcome