Psychological distress and marijuana use before and after treatment: testing cognitive-behavioral matching hypotheses

The purpose of this study was to examine the relationship between psychological distress, self-efficacy, and marijuana use using data from a randomized controlled trial of treatments for marijuana dependence [J. Consult. Clin. Psychol. 68 (2000) 898-908]. Adult marijuana users seeking treatment (N=291) were randomly assigned to three treatment conditions: (1) cognitive-behavioral relapse prevention support group (RPSG), (2) individualized assessment and advice group (IAI), and (3) delayed treatment control group (DTC). As predicted, psychologically distressed individuals had lower self-efficacy for avoiding marijuana use in psychologically distressing (PD) situations as opposed to nonpsychologically distressing (NPD) situations. However, all participants tended to have lower self-efficacy for NPD situations than PD situations. Efficacy increased and marijuana use decreased following treatment but the RPSG treatment did not have greater benefit for psychologically distressed participants.