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Treatment
The range of medical, psychological, and social services designed to help individuals reduce or stop substance use and manage substance use disorders. Treatment may include assessment, counselling and behavioural therapies, medication-assisted treatment, withdrawal management, and support for co-occurring mental or physical health conditions. Effective treatment is typically person-centred and evidence-informed, and may be provided in outpatient, community, or residential settings. Treatment aims to improve health and functioning, reduce substance-related harms, and support individuals in moving toward recovery and long-term wellbeing.
Treatment for Opioid Use Disorder: What's There to Learn?
This misuse of prescription opioids is a major public health challenge. Buprenorphine-naloxone (bup-nx) is typically used to treat opioid use disorders. However, the drug’s clinical trial primarily involved heroin users. It was therefore...
A Possible New Treatment for Alcohol Disorders?
New research published in the journal Biological Psychiartry points to a novel way for the treatment of alcoholism. This would look to reduce motivation for drinking instead of altering the effects of alcohol, itself. Indeed, the study...
How Do We Tackle the Opioid Epidemic?
The over-prescription of opioids is a significant public health issue in the United States. For example, opioids are often prescribed for minor injuries unnecessarily. This, in turn, increases the risk of addiction.
New research presented...
Effectiveness Bank Matrix Bite: What If the Therapist ... Is Also the Jailer?
A cell in the Alcohol Treatment Matrix. In an extreme form, the title poses the dilemma for alcohol treatment staff who may also be (seen as) working for authorities whose main role is to control or punish the ‘client’ or who may be...
Technology and Smoking Cessation: Are Personalised Emails Effective for Would-be Quitters?
A new American Cancer Society study published in the journal Tobacco Control suggests that regularly receiving personalised emails with tips for quitting amongst other information could be as effective at reducing the rate of smoking as...
More Treatments on Deck for Alcohol Use Disorder
Thirteen years have passed since the US Food and Drug Administration (FDA) last approved a new medication to help the nation’s millions of people with alcohol use disorder (AUD) stop or moderate their drinking.
Only 3 such formulations...
Do α2-Adrenergic Agonists Decrease the Symptoms Associated With Opioid Withdrawal?
Study Selection
This systematic review included randomized controlled clinical trials that compared the administration of an α2-adernergic agonist with other interventions such as placebo or methadone to reduce symptoms of opioid...
Estimating the Cost-Effectiveness of Brief Interventions for Heavy Drinking in Primary Health Care across Europe
Background
Screening and brief interventions for alcohol are an effective public health measure to tackle alcohol-related harm, however relatively few countries across the European Union (EU) have implemented them widely. This may be due...
Non-Medicinal Ritalin Use: Study Enhanced, But Taking a Chance
New research published in the Journal of Neural Transmission highlights a number of potential adverse side-effects from using the stimulant drug Ritalin without a prescription. Ritalin (Methylphenidate) is medically used to treat Attention...
Effectiveness Bank Matrix Bite: Treatment not for the Patient but for the Community
The final row of the Alcohol Treatment Matrix enters the domain of treatment organised not primarily for the patient, but to safeguard the wider community, encountering what seems a core contradiction depicted on the cover of WHO guidance...
Guidelines for Prescribing Opioids: A Free Online Training Course
A free online training course from the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention (CDC) is now available.
The course addresses the CDC recommendations with respect to the prescription of opioids for chronic pain as well as their treatment...
Treatment of Skid-Row Alcoholics with Disulfiram
Conducted in 1962 and 1963 in Atlanta in the USA, the featured article seems the first to have tested whether problem-drinking offenders will take a drug which enforces abstinence by generating deterrent reactions to alcohol, if the...
Adult Substance Misuse Statistics from the National Drug Treatment Monitoring System (NDTMS)
This report brings together information on people receiving specialist interventions for drug problems and for problem drinking in England, other than patients receiving this treatment in prison.
Analysed textually and pictorially through...
State HCV Incidence and Policies Related to HCV Preventive and Treatment Services for Persons Who Inject Drugs — United States, 2015–2016
Summary
What is already known about this topic?
The United States has experienced a sharp increase in hepatitis C virus (HCV) incidence that can be attributed to injection drug use. Some states have used public health laws and treatment...
ATTC White Paper: Preparing Students to Work in Integrated Health Care Systems
A recently published White Paper by the Addiction Technology Transfer Centre Newtork (ATTC) starts with the premise that the substance use disorder (SUD) prevention, treatment and recovery workforce is currently undergoing an evolution as a...
Free Harvard Medical School E-Courses on Opioid Addiction for Beginners to Healthcare Professionals
Opioid addiction is a major problem in the US.
In this way, Harvard Medical School (HMS) has introduced a new online course entitled OpioidX: The Opioid Crisis in America.
OpioidX is the first free, comprehensive educational programme on...
Extending the Reach of Treatment for Opioid Use Disorders into Rural Areas
A new study published in the Journal of Addiction Medicine suggests that a tele-psychiatric approach which uses video-link technology in combination with medicinal treatment in the form of buprenorphine could be as effective as the usual...
Now Available: European Facility Survey Questionnaire (EFSQ) Package
The European Facility Survey Questionnaire (EFSQ) can be used for data collection in any country by those looking to investigate facilities that provide interventions for drug users.
Its aim is to collect information on facilities in...
Aggression Linked to Substance Use
New Research published in the Journal of Clinical Psychiatry has found that people with intermittent explosive disorder (IED) – a condition with a significant genetic component characterised by regular outbursts of aggression, whether...
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