Hot topic search results

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

You have found 35 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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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.

STUDY 2018 HTM file
Remote alcohol monitoring to facilitate incentive-based treatment for alcohol use disorder: a randomized trial

Can new digital technologies do anything to boost the ‘limited, yet promising’ evidence base for incentivising abstinence among people with alcohol use disorders?

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?

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.

REVIEW 2016 HTM file
How can contingency management support treatment for substance use disorders? A systematic review

Rewarding people dependent on illegal drugs for not using those drugs is a controversial tactic, one this review from the EU’s drug misuse centre found patchily effective in extending retention and reducing substance use as a supplement to medication-based treatments.

DOCUMENT 2007 HTM file
Drug misuse in over 16s: psychosocial interventions

After examining the evidence for psychosocial therapies for problem drug use, the UK’s official health advisers recommend behavioural couples therapy and contingency management, argue against cognitive-behavioural therapies, and pose residential rehabilitation as a last resort – in some respects surprising and controversial recommendations.

HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
Are the drugs enough? Counselling and therapy in substitute prescribing programmes

One of our hot topics offering background and analysis on important issues which sometimes generate heated debate. Explore the somewhat heretical proposition that the counsellor can virtually be dispensed with in opiate substitute prescribing programmes with little loss of impact. The gain would be that methadone could be spread ‘thin and wide’, reaching more potential patients.

REVIEW 2014 HTM file
Prize-based contingency management for the treatment of substance abusers: a meta-analysis

Systematically giving substance use patients a chance to win valuable prizes if they test abstinent offers a lower-cost alternative to ‘contingency management’ systems which provide rewards each time, but does it work? Across 18 studies the answer was ‘Yes,’ though effects soon faded.

HOT TOPIC 2016 HTM file
Prizes for not using drugs?

‘Hot topics’ offer background and analysis on important issues which sometimes generate heated debate. Contingency management programmes reward patients for complying with treatment or not engaging in undesired substance use. It works, but often only temporarily – and perhaps at the cost of eroding the patient’s confidence and motivation.


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