Monday, February 22, 2010

The Wisdom of Cochrane

The group that reached this conclusion:
The available experimental studies did not demonstrate the effectiveness of AA or other 12-step approaches in reducing alcohol use and achieving abstinence compared with other treatments, but there were some limitations with these studies. Furthermore, many different interventions were often compared in the same study and too many hypotheses were tested at the same time to identify factors which determine treatment success.
Psychostimulants did not improve cocaine use, had an unclear beneficial effect over sustained cocaine abstinence and were not associated with higher retention in treatment. Psychostimulants did not increase risk of serious adverse events. It was found that psychostimulants could be efficacious for some groups of patients, such as methadone maintained dual heroin-cocaine addicts. Therefore, psychostimulants, though have not proved yet their efficacy for cocaine dependence, deserve further investigation.

7 comments:

Unknown said...

Well, thank God we finally got to the bottom of that! (What did he say?)

Anonymous said...

Methadone+Psychostimulants=speedball. Efficacious for addiction maintenance. 

Lou said...

I get mixed up on the dates on your series. Instead of saying "next Tuesday" could you also put the date? Just sayin;)

Jason Schwartz said...

Lou - Thanks for the advice. Where are you talking about?

Lou said...

On the sidebar on the right (Dawn Farm on facebook) It says "this Tuesday's topic will be: for Family and Friends: How to Support Recovery..." Which Tuesday? The date is probably on facebook, but I'm not on facebook.

They seem like great topics, and of benefit to the community.

Jason Schwartz said...

Got it. Thanks.

PeaPod said...

Clear as mud really.

The problem with Cochrane and AA is that they are using the wrong tool for the job. Not only are randomised controlled trials so difficult to design and implement for mutual aid, you can't control the intervention as every intervention (group) is different and you can't stop the "controls" going to AA anyway.

I reckon it's easier to disentangle my Christmas tree lights than it is to understand what they are saying about stimulants and their place in treatment.