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Weekly patterns of drug treatment attendance
D S Svikis1, R W Pickens, W Schweitzer
1Johns Hopkins University School of Medicine, Baltimore, Md., USA. dacecap@aol.com
Objectives:
This study examined weekly patterns of drug treatment attendance in relation to date of welfare payment receipt and reason for treatment absence.
Methods:
Treatment attendance by Medicaid-eligible pregnant women who were drug dependent was examined by calendar week over a 29-month period.
Results:
Time series analyses showed that attendance was lower during week 1 than week 4. Drug use was the most frequently reported reason for treatment absence during week 1 (25%) but was not reported as a reason during week 3.
Conclusions:
Drug-dependent outpatients had increased absences associated with illicit drug use during the first week of the month when welfare payments were received. The generalizability of the findings is unknown.