Treatment of drug addiction and psychopathology: A field study

• Main Authors: Antonio Souto, Luis Fernandez-Rios, Manuel Isorna
• Format: Article
• Language: English
• Published: Sociedad Española de Psicología Jurídica y Forense 2010-01-01
• Series: European Journal of Psychology Applied to Legal Context
• Subjects: Psychopathology; Drug addiction; Drug-free programme; Antagonists; agonists; Dual diagnosis.
• Online Access: http://webs.uvigo.es/sepjf/index.php?option=com_docman&task=doc_download&gid=21&Itemid=110&lang=en
• ISSN: 1889-1861; 1989-4007

Field study to assess the concurrence of the psychopathology of drug addiction, and to evaluate the efficacy of pharmacological treatment versus drug-free treatments for the psychopathology of drug addiction. A total of 261 patients treated for drug addiction, 131 on a drug-free treatment and the remaining 130 patients received a drug regime, of which 113 were, according to the Prochaska and Decrement’s Transtheorical Model, in a initial phase of the treatment (from 15 days to 6 months of treatment) and 148 in a maintenance phase in drug treatment (> 6 months), were psychopathologically assessed using the SCL-90-R (Derogatis, 2002). A field study with a 2 X 2 design (treatment: drug-free vs. drug-regime) and (treatment phase: initial phase vs. maintenance in drug treatment) was carried out. The results support the hypothesis of a dual diagnosis, that is, the comorbidity of psychopathology and drug addiction. On the whole, treatment for drug addiction had a significant impact on reducing associated psychopathology. Finally, the results are discussed in the light of the implications for the treatment of drug addiction.