Addiction Treatment
By: Anonymous
Addiction Treatment This study will explore existing research data and reports from various agencies and journals in order to answer the question: does the length of treatment improve the success of people who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol? I have chosen several scientific journal articles concerning the relationship between the success rate of substance abusing clients and their length of time spent in treatment. Equal numbers of studies, both supporting and not supporting my hypothesis, will be used in order to present an unbiased, objective evaluation. In reality the dependent variable that I am interested in measuring is the success rate of substance abusers, with the independent variable being the length of treatment. As this is secondary research, for the purpose of this paper and evaluations of other articles, the dependent variable of my research will be the hypothesis of this paper. The support of this question/idea, or the lack of support will be provided by the independent variables, ie; journal articles and/or data compiled. An operational definition of my independent variable will be the reliability and validity of the journal articles selected for the study. One important factor for the operational definition will be what questions the articles ask and how well the findings they produce would support or not support my hypothesis. In fact, I used only studies that mentioned a relation in patient success or outcome and length of treatment, regardless of whether the outcome; or dependent variable, was positive or negative. There are other factors that have to be considered as variables and how they might influence the outcome of a clients treatment, ie; motivation for treatment, denial, family/support systems or the lack of them, level of addiction, and mental health (Cruse, 1989). I have no way of measuring these and will look at length of treatment in general as duration of treatment may change such variables itself. National
Addiction Treatment This study will explore existing research data and reports from various agencies and journals in order to answer the question: does the length of treatment improve the success of people who are addicted to drugs and/or alcohol? I have chosen several scientific journal articles concerning the relationship between the success rate of substance abusing clients and their length of time spent in treatment. Equal numbers of studies, both supporting and not supporting my hypothesis, will be used in order to present an unbiased, objective evaluation. In reality the dependent variable that I am interested in measuring is the success rate of substance abusers, with the independent variable being the length of treatment. As this is secondary research, for the purpose of this paper and evaluations of other articles, the dependent variable of my research will be the hypothesis of this paper. The support of this question/idea, or the lack of support will be provided by the independent variables, ie; journal articles and/or data compiled. An operational definition of my independent variable will be the reliability and validity of the journal articles selected for the study. One important factor for the operational definition will be what questions the articles ask and how well the findings they produce would support or not support my hypothesis. In fact, I used only studies that mentioned a relation in patient success or outcome and length of treatment, regardless of whether the outcome; or dependent variable, was positive or negative. There are other factors that have to be considered as variables and how they might influence the outcome of a clients treatment, ie; motivation for treatment, denial, family/support systems or the lack of them, level of addiction, and mental health (Cruse, 1989). I have no way of measuring these and will look at length of treatment in general as duration of treatment may change such variables itself. National
References: 1) Cruse, Sharon Wegscheider, 1989. Another Chance. Palo Alto: Science and Behavior Books Inc. 2) Fisher, G., & Harrison, T. 1997. Substance Abuse. Boston: Allyn and Bacon. 3) SAMHSA, 1998. Drug Abuse Treatment System Survey. Http://www.icpsr.umich.edu.SAMHDA/other.html#datss Word Count: 836 ssv