Improving on-time counseling attendance in a methadone treatment program: a contingency management approach

Two studies were conducted to investigate the effectiveness of contingency management techniques in promoting punctual counseling attendance among methadone maintenance patients. In Study 1, 50 participants were recruited from an inner-city methadone maintenance program. Study 1 used an A-B-A design with baseline, intervention, and return-to-baseline phases. On-time attendance was reinforced during the intervention phase with a voucher that was redeemable for a draw out of a box containing 100 tokens with values varying from 0.00 dollars to 100.00 dollars. Methadone maintenance patients who exhibited poor attendance during baseline showed a significant positive response during the contingency management intervention phase. Study 2 used the same design as Study 1 except that the 52 participants were randomized into reinforcement groups that received either the variable rate of reinforcement as in Study 1 or a fixed value reinforcer of 3.25 dollars. As in Study 1, Poor Attenders significantly improved counseling attendance during the intervention. There were no differences between the variable and fixed reinforcement groups. Overall, results suggest that targeting Poor Attenders with contingency management techniques may be a cost-effective method of improving counseling attendance. Targeting Poor Attenders early in treatment may be especially important for improving treatment outcomes.