Continuing care to improve treatment outcomes

Continuing care, i.e. interventions following the initial period of more intensive care aimed at manage and sustain recovery (including cognitive behavioural therapies (CBT), recovery management check-ups, 12-step or self-help and technology based interventions) was found in a systematic review with meta-analysis (Blodgett  et al., 2014, 19 studies, N=3542) to be more effective than control conditions on:

• at least one substance use outcome (Hedges’ g = 0.187,  p< 0.001)

The same meta-analysis also found that

• longer planned treatments did not have larger effects sizes than studies with shorter prescribed periods of treatment
• there was no significant difference between treatments with protocol-specified intervention sessions and those without planned sessions per week

These results were confirmed by another systematic review without meta-analysis (Dennis et al., 2014) that looked specifically at the effects of different types of continuing care:  

• behavioural therapies showed promising results on use and retention in treatment outcomes, especially for moderate severity clients recovery managements check-ups are primarily effective in linking people back to treatment more robust evidence is still needed for self-help groups and technology-based interventions