Back to Annual Meeting Page		American Public Health Association 133rd Annual Meeting & Exposition December 10-14, 2005 Philadelphia, PA

Abstract #118177

Leigh A. Henderson, PhD, Synectics for Management Decisions, Inc., 1901 North Moore Street, Suite 900, Arlington, VA 22209, 410-235-3096, leighh@smdi.com and Lev S. Sverdlov, MD, PhD, DMS, Health Outcomes and Statistics, Health Dialog, 39 Forest Ave., Portland, ME 04101.

Objectives: To explore factors affecting retention of clients referred to substance abuse treatment by the criminal justice (CJ); controlling for these factors, to assess the impact of CJ on retention in methadone treatment. Data on 292,966 outpatient non-methadone (OP), 93,351 residential (R) discharges and 30.411 discharges from methadone treatment (M) during 2001 reported to the Treatment Episode Data Set by 22 States. Methods: Kaplan-Meier analysis and Cox's proportional hazards regression. Results: Among OP 49.1 percent were referred by CJ, among R - 28.0 percent, and among M - 4.6 percent. Clients referred by CJ had significantly greater ALOS than those referred by other sources (OS): OP - 86.0 and 67.2 days; R - 46.4 and 36.7 days, and M - 83.2 and 70.3 days respectively. These trends were confirmed by Kaplan-Meier and Cox's proportional hazards regression analyses. The average Proxy Composite Severity Index among clients referred by CJ was significantly lower than among those referred by OS (OP - 3.72 and 4.52; R - 4.76 and 5.40, and M - 5.27 and 5.45). The association of retention with the involvement with CJ was different among various age, race/ethnicity, employment, and education groups. Discussion: Referral by CJ is associated with better retention in substance abuse treatment. CJ coerced substance abusers to treatment on average at the earlier, less severe stages of the substance abuse disorder compared to those referred by OS. While stratified by the severity levels, clients referred by CJ stayed in treatment on average longer than those referred by OS.

Learning Objectives:

• Learn about factors affecting retention of clients referred to substance abuse treatment by the criminal justice
• Learn about the effeffects of the involvement with criminal justice on retention in substance abuse treatment.

Keywords: Substance Abuse Treatment, Criminal Justice

Presenting author's disclosure statement:

I wish to disclose that I have NO financial interests or other relationship with the manufactures of commercial products, suppliers of commercial services or commercial supporters.