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You have found 54 entries after clicking the GO button or a search link in a hot topic. Starting with the most recently added or updated entries, 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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STUDY 1962 HTM file
The abstinent alcoholic

Classic description of the patient who has sustained abstinence after treatment but is still unhappy, unfulfilled and/or nervously hanging on – in other words, not really ‘recovered’. They formed the majority of patients seen at Connecticut’s alcohol clinics in the 1950s who were not drinking at follow-up.

REVIEW 2019 HTM file
The effectiveness of residential treatment services for individuals with substance use disorders: a systematic review

Has enough high-quality evidence accumulated over the past five years to improve confidence in the effectiveness of residential treatment?

STUDY 2019 HTM file
Efficacy and cost-effectiveness of an adjunctive personalised psychosocial intervention in treatment-resistant maintenance opioid agonist therapy: a pragmatic, open-label, randomised controlled trial

Instead of a set programme, a clinic in London tried offering methadone or buprenorphine patients still using heroin or cocaine a selection from a suite of well-supported psychological interventions tailored to the patient and then systematically re-tailored in the light of how they responded. It worked – but did it work well enough, and would the findings be replicated in more typical circumstances?

STUDY 1988 HTM file
Is the counselor an “active ingredient” in substance abuse rehabilitation? An examination of treatment success among four counselors

The unexpected resignations of two counsellors at a US methadone clinic in early 1985 triggered a unique study of the influence of counsellors on their patients’ recovery. Its insight remains relevant today, and the study has been added to the Effectiveness Bank as a piece of ‘old gold’.

DOCUMENT 2017 HTM file
2017 Drug Strategy

Continuing in the vein of its precursor, the UK Government’s new drug strategy pledges to tackle drug use and dependence through reducing demand, restricting supply, and building recovery, and adds to this a further ambition to drive global action.

HOT TOPIC 2017 HTM file
Promoting recovery through employment

One of our hot topics offering background and analysis on important issues which sometimes generate heated debate. Employment is seen as the key to lasting recovery, but how realistic is it for people whose lifestyles have revolved around using and obtaining drugs?

REVIEW 2017 HTM file
An evidence review of the outcomes that can be expected of drug misuse treatment in England

English treatment systems perform at least as well as other countries on a number of measures, but have a considerably higher rate of drug-related deaths than elsewhere in Europe. As well as pursuing harm reduction and recovery, this report stresses the importance of social integration as an objective.

DOCUMENT 2016 HTM file
Coexisting severe mental illness and substance misuse: community health and social care services

NICE guidance on health and social care for substance users with severe mental illness says that rather than creating specialist ‘dual diagnosis’ services, health and social care (including substance misuse) services should adapt to this caseload, and their care should be led by the mental health service.

STUDY 2011 HTM file
Monitoring and evaluation of family intervention services and projects between February 2007 and March 2011

Family interventions were at the heart of the UK government’s ambition to ‘turn round’ the lives of 120,000 troubled families in England. In respect of drink and drug problems, substantial remission was seen, but the featured study could not show whether this was due to the interventions, and a report on a successor programme found no significant impacts.

REVIEW 2012 HTM file
Social reintegration and employment: evidence and interventions for drug users in treatment

Report for the EU identifies an urgent need to increase access to social reintegration interventions for problem drug users. Though unable to pin down the best approaches, it stresses that reintegration measures should be embedded into drug treatment at an early stage.


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