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Brief interventions can help stop drug abuse

Physician Practice Advisor, January 11, 2005

New research supported by the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA), National Institutes of Health, shows that drug-addicted patients who meet with a counselor during routine doctor visits and receive a follow-up "booster" phone call are more motivated to reduce their use of cocaine and heroin.

For the study, 1,175 men and women who had tested positive for cocaine or heroin abuse were randomly assigned to an intervention group or a control group. Intervention consisted of a 20-minute motivational interview with a substance abuse outreach worker, referrals to active drug-abuse treatment programs, a written list of treatment options, and a follow-up telephone call 10 days later. Members of the control group received only the written list.

Six months after the study, the researchers found that:

• Among those who abused cocaine, 22.3% of the intervention group abstained from the drug v. 16.9% of the control group
• Among those who abused heroin, 40.2% of the intervention group abstained from the drug v. 30.6% of the control group
• Among those who abused both drugs, 17.4% of the intervention group were drug free v. 12.8% of the control group

The study is published in the January 2005 issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence.

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