Effectiveness of Sequential Combined Treatment in Comparison with Treatment as Usual in Preventing Relapse in Alcohol Dependence

Abstract

SCT can result in better outcomes than TU in the outpatient treatment of alcohol dependence.

Prognostic Factors During Outpatient Treatment for Alcohol Dependence: Cohort Study with 6 months of Treatment Follow-up

“…Treatment as usual uses up to two phases in one consultation: the first phase with the patient alone and sometimes a second phase with patient and the co-responsible. The effectiveness of the sequential combined treatment in comparison with the usual treatment was shown previously by Neto et al (2008). With the three or four phases, the length of the consultations was no >30 min.…”

“…The study was conducted in an observational clinical cohort of alcohol-dependent patients followed during 6 months of outpatient treatment (follow-up period). The sample comprised 209 patients selected according to Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental Disorders DSM-IV (APA, 1994;APA, 2002) in two hospital centers: Unidade de Alcoologia de Lisboa (n = 194) and Hospital Nossa Senhora do Rosário (n = 15), being the data collection authorized by institution ethical approval (Neto et al, 2008).…”

“…Treatment adherence is important (McKay and Weiss, 2001;Kiritzé-Topor et al, 2004) including the adherence to medical consultations during treatment (McCrady and Epstein, 2004;Mann et al, 2005;Terra et al, 2008). Also, the style of the consultation matters: involving the patient co-responsible in the consultation at a number of separate points (Neto et al, 2008).…”

Frequency and Predictors of Alcohol-Related Outcomes Following Alcohol Residential Rehabilitation Programs: A 12-Month Follow-Up Study

“…Previous studies showed high relapse rates (around 60%) within the first six months following detoxification and explored the prognostic factors for patients’ outcomes [5,12,13,14,15,16,17,18,19,20,21]. This high rate of relapse can be partially explained by the complexity and dynamicity of the addictive change process [17].…”

“…A recent study [27] examined change over the last 20 years of alcohol-dependent patients and found a significant increment of patients admitted to residential programs for alcohol dependence with polysubstance abuse and/or dual psychiatric diagnosis. However, a limited number of studies focused on the relationship between dual diagnosis and treatment outcomes [19], and many studies exploring predictors of posttreatment drinking outcomes included relatively small sample sizes [14] enrolled from one clinic [15], which reduces the generalizability of results.…”