Impact of a trauma intervention on reducing dropout from substance use disorder treatment

Abstract

Objective: To evaluate the effectiveness (in terms of retention) of an intervention aimed at treating the consequences of lifetime physical and/or sexual abuse among patients who are also seeking substance use disorder treatment (SUD-T) in a clinical centre. Method: A parallel, randomized, controlled clinical trial using an experimental design (with one treatment group and one control group) with repeated measures (pretreatment, posttreatment and 6-month follow-up) was carried out. The sample consisted of 57 patients in SUD-T who had experienced lifetime physical and/or sexual abuse. All patients received a cognitive-behavioural SUD-T. In addition, the treatment group (n = 29) received physical and/or sexual abuse treatment (PSA-T). Results: The treatment group presented a lower SUD-T dropout rate (37.9%; n = 11) than the control group (50.0%; n = 14), but this difference was not statistically significant (χ2 = 0.8; p = .359; Phi = .122). The main variable related to SUD-T success (therapeutic discharge after completing the 40 outpatient sessions or 12 inpatients months and maintained abstinence) was the completion of PSA-T. Conclusions: The completion of this trauma-centred treatment improved the retention rate of SUD-T in patients with histories of physical and/or sexual abuse. This is a promising result because of the high SUD-T dropout rate shown by patients with victimization.