Suchergebnisse

Evaluation of drug treatment requires the critical examination of assumptions of the kinds of relationships people establish with substances, and the ways in which these beliefs have influenced researchers, health professionals and law makers in dealing with the "problem of drug abuse." This is the purpose of the present paper, which also sets out an expanded frame of reference with which to address salient issues facing the field of addiction science.

This article presents the rationale and procedures for conducting a process analysis in evaluation research. Such an analysis attempts to identify the process that mediates the effects of some treatment, by estimating the parameters of a causal chain between the treatment and some outcome variable. Two different procedures for estimating mediation are discussed. In addition we present procedures for examining whether a treatment exerts its effects, in part, by altering the mediating process that produces the outcome. Finally, the benefits of process analysis in evaluation research are underlined.

Increasingly, and appropriately, drug dependency is being viewed as a problem with people rather than simply a problem with chemicals (Treffert, 1971). Comprehensive, multi-dimensional, "different strokes for different folks" approaches have largely replaced single entity, uni-dimensional programs (Glasscote, et al., 1972). As evident and as commendable as that movement and direction is in the treatment area, evaluation efforts are still locked into the use of a single, uni-dimensional, and solitary measure—the presence or absence of drug use or abuse following discharge. If it makes sense to look beyond drugs in treatment, then it makes sense as well to look beyond the return to drug use or abuse as the sole measure of effectiveness of drug programs. This paper describes a holistic, multi-dimensional, evaluation approach to measuring effectiveness of drug treatment programs which does not ignore, but does not focus entirely upon, the return to drug use or abuse as the sole measure of effectiveness. This evaluation tool has been in use for twelve (12) months in the Tellurian Community, a 38 bed residential treatment program for the seriously dependent drug abuser.