A Preliminary Study of the Effects of Patient Feedback in Outpatient Substance Abuse Treatment Programs

NIH-Funded Study of Quality Improvement in Substance Abuse Clinics

This study is a preliminary evaluation of a feedback system to improve treatment retention and outcome for patients in treatment at community substance abuse clinics. Although feedback using the Outcome Questionnaire-45 (OQ-45) has been shown to be effective in randomized clinical trials performed in mental health clinics, there have been no studies to date that have evaluated this feedback system among patients in substance abuse treatment clinics. The current study is a multi-site study conducted by the University of Pennsylvania, New York University School of Medicine, and Brigham Young University designed to obtain preliminary data on the feasibility and success of using the OQ-45 feedback system plus clinical support tools with patients in substance abuse clinics.

The study will take place in two phases. In the first phase, approximately 200 patients seeking outpatient treatment for alcohol or drug use problems are assessed prior to the individual treatment session for up to 12 weeks using the OQ-45 instrument. During the second phase, an additional 200 (approximate) patients in the same clinics are administered the OQ-45 prior to their individual treatment sessions, and the counselors for these patients will receive immediate feedback reports based on the patients' OQ-45 assessments. In addition to the OQ-45 reports, counselors in the second phase will also have access to clinical support tools and the Assessment for Signal Clients (ASC), a report generated for patients who appear to be "not on track."

Principal Investigator:  Paul Crits-Christoph, PhD

This study is CLOSED to recruitment.

 

 

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