Computer programs help drug abusers stay abstinent, Yale researchers find
New Haven, Conn - Drug abusers who used a computer-assisted training program in addition to receiving traditional counseling stayed abstinent significantly longer than those who received counseling alone, a Yale University study has found.
The findings were reported in the May 1 online edition of the American Journal of Psychiatry.
Seventy-seven people who sought treatment for drug and alcohol abuse were randomly assigned to receive traditional counseling or to get computer-assisted training based on principles of cognitive behavioral therapy as well as sessions with a therapist.
The subjects who received computer-assisted training had significantly fewer positive drug tests at the conclusion of the study, reported Kathleen M. Carroll, professor of psychiatry and lead author of the study.
"We think this is a very exciting way of reaching more people who may have substance use problems and providing a means of helping them learn effective ways to change their behavior," Carroll said.
Cognitive behavioral therapy concentrates on teaching skills and strategies to help people change behavior patterns and has been proven to be effective way to treat a wide variety of psychiatric disorders. However, such therapy is not widely available for people with substance use problems, Carroll said.
Also, many counselors lack the time or training to fully implement cognitive behavioral therapies for their patients, she said. She and her team at the Yale School of Medicine developed a software program to help supplement counseling in drug addiction as well as other psychiatric disorders.
The computer-assisted therapy program consists of text, audio, and videotaped examples designed to help the user learn new ways of avoiding the use of drugs and changing other problem behaviors. The study volunteers had sought treatment at a substance abuse clinic in Bridgeport, Ct. and met diagnostic criteria for a substance use problem, with alcohol, cocaine, opioids or marijuana.
Those assigned to computer-assisted training were exposed to six lessons, or modules, that they accessed from a computer located at the treatment program. Each module included a brief movie that presented a particular challenge to the subjects "ability to resist substance use" such as the offer of drugs from a dealer.
The narrator of the module then presented different skills and strategies to avoid drug use and also show videotapes of individuals employing those strategies.
Interesting way to ween people off drugs, although you never seem to see much documented evidence, of how people get weened off them before they start.
This test they use could also highlight a point, about whether more time and reasearch is being spent in treating a certain situation, as opposed to preventing it.
Interesting way to ween people off drugs, although you never seem to see much documented evidence, of how people get weened off them before they start.
This test they use could also highlight a point, about whether more time and reasearch is being spent in treating a certain situation, as opposed to preventing it.
Boss,
There's a traditional remedy that works very well in the prevention-department. It's called "proper parenting" - this would naturally include a good diet, plenty of exercise and other healthy social-activites, a household devoid of moral relativism but centered around decent and ambitious values/principles, plenty of love and affection, etc. ... all of which lead to brain chemistry that makes drug addiction very unlikely (though not impossible).
Having said all that, I'm sure there are some scientists working on a preventive version of such software. But, it will never replace the true (and most natural) source of prevention. Prevention never has been very exciting or easy. It's just very, very effective when implemented in a proper way.
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The main preventative ways outside the home should be things like talks in schools, from drug police officers, or medical people, or films showing addicts at their worst, so that kids learn it's very bad to end up like that.
Things like that obviously do happen, but most people don't know to what extent, or if more such drug education is needed.
Computer Program May Assist Drug Addicts
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