Continuing Care Following Drug Abuse Treatment: Linkage With Primary Care

Kaiser Permanente

Status: Active, not recruiting

Conditions: Substance, Addiction; Alcohol Abuse; Substance Dependence; Substance Abuse

Treatments: Behavioral: Linkage patient activation intervention

Study type: Interventional

Funder types: Other

Identifiers

NCT01621711

10-01606

Details and patient eligibility

About

This component of a larger Center of Research Excellence Grant improves treatment for drug abuse by developing effective linkages between specialty drug treatment and primary health care.

Full description

This is a longitudinal two-arm quasi-experimental 3-month alternating off/on design over a 30 month period in which, after a random start, the Linkage condition alternately is added to Usual Care in the Chemical Dependency (CD) clinic and then removed. We compare Usual Care to Usual Care plus Linkage. Follow-up interviews will be conducted at 6, 12 and 24 months. The Linkage intervention includes Usual Care plus 1) sessions on activation regarding overall health behaviors and on selecting a Primary Care physician and communicating with him/her, and 2) a linkage phone call (and/or a facilitated email) with the patient, clinician, and Primary Care physician. The intervention aims to place drug abuse problems in the context of overall health and health care and to activate patients to increase involvement in their own health care.

Enrollment: 504 patients

Sex: All

Ages: 18+ years old

Volunteers: No Healthy Volunteers

Inclusion criteria

• Research participants will be adult patients at the Kaiser Permanente San Francisco Chemical Dependency Recovery Program, who have completed 2 weeks of treatment.

Exclusion criteria

• Patients with a diagnosis of dementia, mental retardation, or who are actively psychotic or suicidal will be excluded by their clinician.

Trial design

Primary purpose: Health Services Research

Allocation: Randomized

Interventional model: Parallel Assignment

Masking: None (Open label)

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504 participants in 2 patient groups

Usual Care

No Intervention group

Description:

Usual CD treatment, including therapy groups and individual counseling sessions, and six 45-min medical education groups. Physician appointments, pharmacotherapy, and SUD medications were be available as needed.

Linkage patient activation intervention

Experimental group

Description:

Usual Care with the exception that the six 45-min Linkage patient activation education groups replaced the six 45-min Usual Care medical education groups, plus a linkage phone call (and/or a facilitated email) with the patient, clinician, and Primary Care physician.

Treatment:

Behavioral: Linkage patient activation intervention