Depression and hostility as predictors of long-term outcomes among opiate users

This study used data from the national Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Studies (DATOS) to investigate the associations that pre-treatment depression and hostility have with drug use and criminal behavior at 1 year and 5 year follow-up in patients with and without additional treatment involvement in the year prior to each follow-up.

Following a naturalistic, non-experimental evaluation design, admissions to methadone treatment were followed up approximately 1 and 5 years later. Data analysis was conducted using multiple logistic regression.

Eighteen programs from DATOS were included.

An analytic sample consisting of 727 patients at 1 year follow-up and 432 patients at 5 year follow-up was included.

Multiple logistic regression analyses revealed that greater depression predicted less drug use in the year preceding each follow-up, whereas greater hostility predicted increased drug use and more arrests at each follow-up. Furthermore, these predictive relationships appeared only among individuals not involved in additional treatment.

Depression and hostility showed opposite associations with outcomes, underscoring the need to assess these psychological conditions separately and tailor treatment plans appropriately.