In this country, more patients are treated for alcohol and drug abuse by community-based treatment programs than by any other provider. While community treatment programs (CTPs) have a long history of providing quality treatment to large and diverse patient populations, their treatment approaches typically are not based on the latest evidence from the scientific literature. On the other hand, scientifically tested treatments, delivered under carefully controlled situations to highly selected patient groups, may not have applicability under usual care conditions. There is an urgent need to determine if research findings obtained in resource-rich universities are valid in community-based settings. The purpose of this application is to create a Rocky Mountain Regional (RMR) Clinical Trials Node to pursue this goal. Specifically, we offer the expertise of the substance abuse researchers in the Department of Psychiatry at the University of Colorado Health Sciences Center and the treatment providers we have been affiliated with for many years. Five of these providers are committed to participating in year one of the RMR Node and five more in year two, including CTPs from the state of Utah. Our affiliated treatment providers treat a broad array of clients with substance use problems in a variety of treatment modalities. We are committed to working in true partnership with Colorado and Utah CTPs and to working collaboratively with other investigators in NIDA's Clinical Trials Network (CTN), and with officials from NIDA. We have extensive and broad experience in multi-site collaborations, including multi-site clinical trials. We have expertise in a variety of behavioral and pharmacological treatment approaches, including motivational enhancement therapy, one of the interventions the CTN will be testing in the upcoming year. Our knowledge of this intervention in motivating out-of-treatment injection drug users to enter and remain in treatment would be of great benefit to the CTN.
Showing the most recent 10 out of 27 publications