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You have found 85 entries after clicking the GO button or a search link in a hot topic. Sorted by the main topic addressed, the list shows in orange the type of entry, year the original document was published (or if one of our own documents, the year last updated), and the type of file you will download when you click on the title. In blue is the document’s title followed by a brief description.

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DOCUMENT 2013 HTM file
Delivering recovery. Independent expert review of opioid replacement therapies in Scotland

An expert committee responds to the Scottish government’s concerns over the role of methadone prescribing in helping patients along the Road to Recovery signposted in the national strategy. On the ground, that road was often barely constructed but methadone was not the problem, rather the failure to optimise programmes for recovery.

DOCUMENT 2014 HTM file
Time limiting opioid substitution therapy

Rather than being ‘parked’ on methadone, generally Britain’s heroin-addicted patients leave too soon to fully benefit, argue official government advisers on drug policy. Their report unambiguously countered concerns within the current UK government over methadone maintenance.

HOT TOPIC 2015 HTM file
Prescribing opiate-type drugs to opiate addicts: good sense or nonsense?

One of our hot topics offering background and analysis on important issues which sometimes generate heated debate. For decades deeply felt and at times intemperate debate has surrounded a treatment which achieves unparalleled success by going with the grain of addiction, prescribing the same type of drug which opiate-dependent patients used illegally – a substitution castigated as surrender or hailed as an enlightened lifesaver.

STUDY 2013 HTM file
Medically assisted recovery from opiate dependence within the context of the UK drug strategy: methadone and suboxone (buprenorphine-naloxone) patients compared

Opiate dependent patients in Scotland who opted for or were allocated to methadone sustained their abstinence from heroin as well as those on buprenorphine, but buprenorphine was far better at helping continuing heroin users cut back – suggestive, but the study’s constraints make the practice implications unclear.

STUDY 2005 PDF file 170Kb
'Real-world' studies show that medications do suppress heavy drinking

Three trials found that drugs commonly used to treat alcohol dependence improve outcomes for an appreciable minority of patients, even under conditions close to normal practice. Together they offer clues to who benefits most from each medication.

DOCUMENT 2017 HTM file
Drug misuse and dependence: UK guidelines on clinical management

Last published in 2007, there is no more important document for UK clinicians involved in treating problem drug use than the so-called ‘Orange guidelines’. This major update offers detailed guidance on the range of problems, settings and patients clinicians encounter, substantially informing judgements of what constitutes good medical practice.

STUDY 2001 PDF file 99Kb
How dependent drug users in Scotland avoided relapse

Scottish study provides valuable clues to where anti-relapse interventions might focus. Predated by many years the recovery era in British policy but laid some of the foundations for its shift in emphasis from the psychological or biochemical grip of addiction to lifestyle change which breaks with the past satisfyingly enough to forge a positive, non-addict identity and prevent relapse.

REVIEW ABSTRACT 2009 HTM file
Peer-based addiction recovery support: history, theory, practice, and scientific evaluation

This monograph is likely to become the handbook for the growing peer-based recovery movement in the UK. For administrators, the approaches it reviews offer a way to reconcile decreasing per-patient resources with a policy agenda now focused on reintegration and recovery.

REVIEW 2014 HTM file
Peer recovery support for individuals with substance use disorders: assessing the evidence

For such a widely implemented and widely supported adjunct to formal treatment, the revelation from this review is how little evidence there is for involving former problem substance users in promoting recovery from similar problems – a lack which may simply reflect the paucity of adequate research.

STUDY 2011 HTM file
How does cognitive behaviour therapy work with opioid-dependent clients? Results of the UKCBTMM study

Compromised by an inability to interest enough patients, the only randomised UK trial of cognitive-behavioural therapy for methadone patients was unable to be definitive but did find some signs of benefit and that the therapy had pulled some of the intended psychological levers.


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