Hot topic search results

Effectiveness bank home page. Opens new window Hot topic search results

You have found 107 entries after clicking the GO button or a search link in a hot topic. Starting with analyses of the most recently published documents, 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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MATRIX CELL 2020 HTM file
Drug Treatment Matrix cell C4: Management/supervision; Psychosocial therapies

Seminal and key studies on management and supervision in psychosocial therapies. Findings challenge managers to invest in the post-training ‘coaching’ needed to make a difference for patients, and to set up systems alerting therapists to how well their clients are doing – especially when they are doing badly.

MATRIX CELL 2020 HTM file
Alcohol Treatment Matrix cell C4: Management/supervision; Psychosocial therapies

Seminal and key studies on management and supervision in psychosocial therapies. Focus is on evidence of the need for post-training ‘coaching’ and for letting therapists know how their clients are doing – especially when they are doing badly.

MATRIX CELL 2020 HTM file
Alcohol Treatment Matrix cell A4: Interventions; Psychosocial therapies

Key studies on the ‘common factors’ underlying psychosocial therapies for problem drinking and the effectiveness of specific approaches. Explores the famous ‘Dodo bird’ hypothesis that all bona fide therapies are equivalent, examines the legacy of the UK’s most ambitious treatment trial, asks whether therapy can really make things worse, and questions how research amalgamating impacts from many patients can be applied to the treatment of an individual in their individual circumstances.

MATRIX CELL 2020 HTM file
Alcohol Treatment Matrix cell B4: Practitioners; Psychosocial therapies

Key studies on the impact of the practitioner in psychosocial therapies for alcohol dependence. Structured around Carl Rogers’ classic account of the prerequisites of effective psychotherapy.

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 2019 HTM file
Randomized controlled trial of harm reduction treatment for alcohol (HaRT-A) for people experiencing homelessness and alcohol use disorder

Heavy drinking is clearly problematic for homeless populations, but is the best way to tackle it to aim for abstinence, or to accept the reality of life on the streets and aim to reduce harm and improve lives in ways which make sense to the patient? This US study supports the latter, but without conclusively deciding the issue.

HOT TOPIC 2018 HTM file
Computerised therapies: sacrificing effectiveness for wider access?

‘Hot topics’ offer background and analysis on important issues which sometimes generate heated debate. Among culturally accepted vehicles for delivering substance use interventions, computers, mobile phones and tablets are joining face-to-face work. Are we sacrificing effectiveness for convenience and economy?

REVIEW 2018 HTM file
Congruence/genuineness: a meta-analysis

Research findings amalgamated for the American Psychological Association show that in the (mainly Western) cultures where these studies have been done, outcomes improve the more therapists are seen as genuine by their clients and relating to them human to human rather than as an authority figure.

MATRIX CELL 2018 HTM file
Drug Treatment Matrix cell B4: Practitioners; Psychosocial therapies

Seminal and key studies on the impact of the practitioner in psychosocial therapies. Takes Carl Rogers’s seminal theories as its starting point and guides you through the complexities which obscure the impact of client-worker relationships despite their patent important to the clients.

MATRIX CELL 2018 HTM file
Drug Treatment Matrix cell A4: Interventions; Psychosocial therapies

Seminal and key studies shedding light on the general principles underpinning psychosocial therapies and the effectiveness specific approaches. ’Individualise,’ is the overarching theme … and the consequent dangers of inflexibly following guidelines and research findings.


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