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Introduction: Patients with cocaine use disorders have very high readmission rates. Our aim was to model the relationships between attributes of patients with cocaine use disorder at the beginning of treatment, therapeutic process indicators of time in treatment or proportion of appointments attended, and treatment outcomes, including outcomes at discharge and non-readmissions posttreatment as indicators of therapeutic success. Method: A retrospective observational design was used with 10,298 cocaine use disorder patients. Electronic health records were used for statistical analysis of the data. Randomized subsample 1 (n = 5,150) was used for exploratory analysis and subsample 2 (n = 5,148) for modeling relationships between the variables. Results: Patients attributes at intake (e.g., legal services as the source of referral) were of limited significance in explaining time in treatment, proportion of appointments attended, and treatment outcomes. Time in treatment and proportion of appointments attended emerged as significant factors in explaining outcomes at discharge. However, readmissions were primarily explained by time in treatment and outcomes at discharge, although referrals to addiction centers by health services also appeared to be relevant for explaining readmission. Discussion/Conclusion: Our study has shown that maintaining a sufficient appointment attendance rate and remaining in treatment for a longer duration are critical therapeutic process indicators for explaining outcomes at the point of discharge and therapeutic success, as indicated by a reduced likelihood of readmissions. Patients who remained in treatment for an extended period were found to have a reduced risk of future readmissions. In addition, our study highlights the importance of maintaining a satisfactory appointment attendance rate to attain successful short- and medium-term therapeutic discharge outcomes. These guidelines could help to increase the efficiency of patient treatment and alleviate the suffering of both patients and their families. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]

Introduction: Treatment retention and adherence are used as outcomes in numerous randomized clinical trials and observational studies conducted in the addiction field. Although usual criteria are 3/6 months of treatment retention or number of sessions attended, there is not a methodological support for conclusions using these criteria. This study analyzed the usefulness of retention and adherence to predict therapeutic success. Methods: Retrospective observational study using real‐world data from electronic health records of 11,907 patients in treatment diagnosed with cocaine, alcohol, cannabis and opiate use disorders or harmful use. Results: Moderate effect size relations were found between the different type of clinical discharge and months in retention (η2 = 0.12) and proportion of attendance (η2 = 0.10). No relationship was found with the number of sessions attended. Using cut‐off points (i.e., 3 or 6 months in treatment or attending 6 therapy sessions) worsens the ability to predict the type of discharge. Discussions/Conclusion: Treatment retention and adherence are indicators moderately related to therapeutic success. Research using these indicators to assess the effectiveness of therapies should complement their results with other clinical indicators and quality of life measures. [ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR]