Reinforcement of Abstinence and Continuing Care in Substance Abuse Treatment

Summary

The Contracts, Prompts, and Social Reinforcement (CPR) intervention was designed to address the continuing care adherence needs of veterans presenting for substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. Final results of our recently completed HSR\&D clinical trial suggest CPR meaningfully impacts aftercare adherence and abstinence rates. However, CPR did not impact abstinence rates at earlier follow-up points, other important measures of treatment outcome, or AA/NA support group attendance. Furthermore, the generalizability of CPR to other sites has not been established. Thus, the intervention has been modified and pilot testing of this improved version of CPR, which includes contingent reinforcement of abstinence and improved prompting of AA/NA attendance (CPR+), shows promising results. We are conducting a multi-site randomized clinical trial to examine the effectiveness of CPR+. We recruited 183 veterans seeking residential treatment at the Salem and Jackson VAMCs. Our primary hypothesis is that the CPR group will have higher 1-year abstinence rates compared to the STX group. Our secondary hypotheses are that the CPR will be particularly effective for individuals with co-morbid psychiatric disorders, and that the CPR+ group will remain in AA/NA and in aftercare for a longer duration, have fewer days of substance use, fewer hospitalizations, and lower costs of care. Treatment outcome will be measured 3-, 6-, and 12-months after participants enter treatment and compared to baseline levels. The current study will seek to extend past findings to show longer-term effectiveness of the CPR+ intervention on continuing care adherence and greater impact on treatment outcome. Dissemination and implementation efforts will be ongoing for this brief, inexpensive intervention, which offers an important means to improve participation and outcome for individuals seeking SUD treatment within the VAMC. Data collection and analysis has been completed.

Conditions

• Substance Use Disorders
• Alcohol Abuse
• Alcoholism
• Substance Dependence
• Substance Abuse

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

Contracting, Prompting and Reinforcement arm

Contracting, prompting and reinforcement of continuing care and abstinence.

BEHAVIORAL

Control arm

Routine residential treatment and orientation to continuing care.

Sponsors & Collaborators

• US Department of Veterans Affairs

  lead FED

Principal Investigators

• Steven J Lash, PhD · Salem VA Medical Center, Salem, VA

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

18 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2007-03-31

Primary Completion

2009-06-30

Completion

2011-06-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations