Substance Abuse Treatment Outcomes for Coerced and Noncoerced Clients

This study provides new evidence regarding the relation of coerced care to posttreatment substance use and addiction severity while controlling for two important factors: readiness to change and addiction severity at admission to treatment. The initial study sample consisted of 289 people who agreed to participate in a prospective study of substance abuse treatment outcomes in five large outpatient programs in Ohio. The findings reported here are based on analyses for the 141 (48.8 percent of the original sample) individuals who completed a six-month follow-up interview using the short form of the Addiction Severity Index. These data indicate that legally coerced participants were more likely than noncoerced participants to report abstaining from alcohol and other drugs in the 30 days before their follow-up interview. They were also more likely to demonstrate reduced addiction severity at follow-up. Readiness to change at admission showed no relation to treatment outcomes.