Improved Quality of Life Following Addiction Treatment Is Associated with Reductions in Substance Use

MANNING, Victoria, GARFIELD, JJoshua B. B., LAM, Tina, ALLSOP, Steve, BERENDS, Lynda, BEST, David, BUYKX, Penny, ROOM, Robin and LUBMAN, Dan I. (2019). Improved Quality of Life Following Addiction Treatment Is Associated with Reductions in Substance Use. Journal of Clinical Medicine, 8 (9), e1407.

Preview

PDF jcm-08-01407.pdf - Published Version Creative Commons Attribution. Download (240kB) | Preview

Abstract

People seeking treatment for substance use disorders (SUD) ultimately aspire to improve their quality of life (QOL) through reducing or ceasing their substance use, however the association between these treatment outcomes has received scant research attention. In a prospective, multi-site treatment outcome study (‘Patient Pathways’), we recruited 796 clients within one month of intake from 21 publicly funded addiction treatment services in two Australian states, 555 (70%) of whom were followed-up 12 months later. We measured QOL at baseline and follow-up using the WHOQOL-BREF (physical, psychological, social and environmental domains) and determined rates of “SUD treatment success” (past-month abstinence or a statistically reliable reduction in substance use) at follow-up. Mixed effects linear regression analyses indicated that people who achieved SUD treatment success also achieved significantly greater improvements in QOL, relative to treatment non-responders (all four domains p 0.001). Paired t-tests indicated that non-responders significantly improved their social (p = 0.007) and environmental (p = 0.033) QOL; however, their psychological (p = 0.088) and physical (p = 0.841) QOL did not significantly improve. The findings indicate that following treatment, QOL improved in at least some domains, but that reduced substance use was associated with both stronger and broader improvements in QOL. Addressing physical and psychological co-morbidities during treatment may facilitate reductions in substance use.

Item Type:	Article
Additional Information:	** From MDPI via Jisc Publications Router ** Licence for this article: https://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/ **Journal IDs: eissn 2077-0383 **History: published 06-09-2019; accepted 05-09-2019
Uncontrolled Keywords:	quality of life, substance use treatment, substance use disorder, reduced substance use, abstinence, treatment outcome, addiction, alcohol and drugs
Identification Number:	https://doi.org/10.3390/jcm8091407
Page Range:	e1407
SWORD Depositor:	Helen Garner
Depositing User:	Helen Garner
Date Deposited:	07 Oct 2019 10:22
Last Modified:	18 Mar 2021 03:30
URI:	https://shura.shu.ac.uk/id/eprint/25101

Actions (login required)

View Item

Downloads

Publication Metrics