Realistic measures of treatment success
Measure drug treatment effectiveness in terms of more humane and realistic outcomes—as opposed to the numbers of people taken into treatment and the numbers of people retained in treatment for more than 12 weeks.
At present the effectiveness of drugs treatment is measured in terms of the numbers of people taken into treatment—irrespective of how ‘treatment’ is defined and the quality of the services offered—and the numbers of people retained in treatment for more than 12 weeks.

The new system of measurement would have the effect of putting more weight on improvements experienced by drug users themselves. Within the present drug strategy, cost-benefit analyses have tended to be conducted in terms of the strategy’s impact on crime and the associated benefits to the community rather than outcomes for the individual.

The evaluation of the Scottish drug court scheme, for example, explicitly excludes ‘any estimate for so-called “individual outcomes values” – the intrinsic value to the individual and those around him/her of achieving a more ordered and more personally rewarding life’. As the authors point out, this is equivalent to suggesting that drug-misusing individuals have zero value and that treatments are offered to them only because of their potential value to the rest of society, whatever the consequences to the individual.

By reference to an earlier observation in C Godfrey, D Stewart and M Gossop, ‘Economic analysis of costs and consequences of the treatment of drug misuse: 2-year outcome data from the National Treatment Outcome Research Study (NTORS)’, Addiction, 99, 2004.
Immediately related elementsHow this works
-
Drugs Policy in the UK »Drugs Policy in the UK
What drugs policy measures are open to the UK? »What drugs policy measures are open to the UK?
Emphasize health and social dimensions »Emphasize health and social dimensions
Make drug treatment more intelligent »Make drug treatment more intelligent
Realistic measures of treatment success
Ability to control, reduce and stop use »Ability to control, reduce and stop use
Improvements in health and well-being »Improvements in health and well-being
Current measures have perverse effects »Current measures have perverse effects
Retention is poor indicator of success »Retention is poor indicator of success
Proposed indicators not cost-effective »Proposed indicators not cost-effective
Retention a reasonable proxy for success »Retention a reasonable proxy for success
+Commentaires (0)
+Citations (0)
+About