Effective outpatient drug treatment organizations: program features and selection effects

This research identifies program features that predict outpatient drug treatment outcomes. Treatment effectiveness is measured at the organizational level of analysis in a nationally representative sample of non-methadone outpatient drug misuse treatment organizations (N = 394). Multivariate analyses are conducted to identify program features at various stages of the client career that are related to client outcomes after controlling for client characteristics, organizational characteristics, and social area characteristics. Results indicate that effective non-methadone outpatient drug misuse treatment is related to a number of program features including adequate staff levels, quality assurance efforts, and client follow-up, as well as selection factors that reflect client problem severity.