Can Drug Prevention Programmes Reduce Substance Use by Participants’ Friends?
Besides reducing substance use between its participants one prevention programme also reduced drug use among the friends of those who took part.
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Opioids Linked to Increase in Cocaine-Related Overdose Deaths
Heroin and synthetic opioids are propelling an upsurge of late in cocaine-related overdose deaths. This is according to a national survey carried out by researchers at the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) amongst other drug...
Alcohol Use Disorders Webinar
The Progress in Mind Resource Centre held a one-hour webinar on alcohol use disorders. The webinar was delivered by Wim van den Brink, Professor of Psychiatry and Addiction at the University of Amsterdam, and Steve Brinksman, GP and...
Does AA Really Help Drinkers Stop?
12-step fellowships offer a way to reconcile shrunken resources with the desire to get more patients safely out of treatment. Accounting for the self-selection bias which has obscured AA’s impacts, this synthesis of US trials finds that...
Cocaine Addiction Leads to Build-Up of Iron in the Brain
According to a new study, cocaine addiction may alter the way the body processes iron.
Thousands Die without Access to Alcohol Treatment
The BBC reports that almost 8,000 high-risk drinkers died from alcohol-related causes in Wales, UK between 2005 – 2014 without having received treatment for alcohol addiction. This is despite repeated hospital and A&E admissions for as much...
Guidelines for the Identification and Management of Substance Use and Substance Use Disorders in Pregnancy
These guidelines contain recommendations on the identification and management of substance use and substance use disorders for health care services which assist women who are pregnant, or have recently had a child, and who use alcohol or...
Whole Family Recovery
This document provides an overview of themes that emerged from the Adfam’s Whole Family Recovery and Alcohol Focus Groups and interviews. This research was conducted to scope the impacts of the recovery of someone with an alcohol problem on...
Supporting Families Affected by Substance Use and Domestic Violence
This research report analyses how domestic violence and abuse is more likely than not to occur within intimate partner relationships where one partner has a problem with alcohol or drugs. The aims of this research project were:
- To...
Validity and Reliability of the Alcohol, Smoking, and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST) in University Students
The Alcohol, Smoking and Substance Involvement Screening Test (ASSIST), developed by the World Health Organization (WHO), has been used successfully in many countries, but there are few studies of its validity and reliability for the...
Medications in Drug Treatment: Tackling the Risks to Children – One Year on
This ‘One Year On’ report expands upon the findings and recommendations of Adfam’s Medications in Drug Treatment: Tackling the risks to children, published in 2014, and further contributes to the debate on reducing the risks to children...
Medications in Drug Treatment – Tackling the Risks to Children
This report examines cases where children have died or come to harm from ingesting Opioid Substitution Treatment (OST) medicines prescribed to help people overcome drug addiction. There have been 17 Serious Case Reviews involving the...
Multiple Fentanyl Overdoses — New Haven, Connecticut, June 23, 2016
Summary
What is already known about this topic?
Fentanyl and its analogs have been substituted for heroin and other opioids, and are usually marketed to persons seeking opioids. Because of fentanyl’s high potency compared with heroin...
Reviewing England's Drug Misuse Treatment System
Public Health England’s recently published review reveals that the country’s drug misuse treatment system is performing well. However, there are still several areas that call for improvements.
Amongst the report’s findings, notable are:
- ...
Treating Alcohol Addiction with Positive Relationships
A ‘therapeutic alliance’, or in other words, a positive and trusting relationship between counsellor and patient, could be the key to successful treatment of alcohol addiction, according to a new study. Patients who reported a more positive...
Neural Processing, Risky Behaviour and Cocaine Use
According to new research published in the journal Biological Psychiatry: Cognitive Neuro-science and Neuroimaging, compared to people without a drug problem, cocaine addicts tend to make riskier choices after losing out on a potential...
Australian Smoking Habits
Smoking is a serious health issue worldwide. Prevalence, however, has steadily declined across Australia over the last several decades thanks to a number of successful public health campaigns. The number of smokers in the country is now...
Are Personality-Targeted Prevention Initiatives Successful?
Research has found that one’s personality is a useful predictor of drug and alcohol abuse. One notable programme that approaches substance prevention by focusing on personal characteristics is PreVenture. PreVenture has already been shown...
Returning from Rehab: What Are The Challenges of Re-Integration?
Residential ‘in-patient’ treatment for substance abuse – more commonly known as ‘rehab’ - is the favoured option among those wanting to recover from addiction.
The rate of relapse within the first year following being discharged, however...
Are People Smoking Less and Less?
According to new findings published in the journal Tobacco Control, more than 53 million people in 88 countries have stopped smoking between 2008 – 2014 because of tobacco control measures.
Statistically, this means that during the 4-year...