Continuing Care Following Drug Abuse Treatment: Linkage With Primary Care

Continuing Care Following Drug Abuse Treatment: Linkage With Primary Care

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.

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.

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.