Related Experiment Video
Updated: Jul 3, 2026
09:42
Using Continuous Data Tracking Technology to Study Exercise Adherence in Pulmonary Rehabilitation
Published on: November 8, 2013
Relationship between medication adherence and treatment outcomes: the COMBINE study
Allen Zweben1, Helen M Pettinati, Roger D Weiss
1Columbia University School of Social Work, New York, New York, USA. az173@columbia.edu
Alcoholism, Clinical and Experimental Research
|July 12, 2008
Summary
Medication adherence and combined behavioral intervention (CBI) impact alcoholism treatment outcomes. CBI protected placebo non-adherers, but offered little benefit to naltrexone non-adherers, suggesting medication exposure is key.
Area of Science:
- Addiction Medicine
- Clinical Psychology
- Psychopharmacology
Background:
- Medication adherence is linked to better drinking outcomes in alcoholism treatment.
- The interplay between medication, behavioral treatments, and drinking outcomes requires further investigation.
- This study examines how medication adherence and treatment type influence alcoholism recovery.
Purpose of the Study:
- To investigate the differential impact of medication adherence and treatment factors on drinking outcomes.
- To explore the interrelationships between medication adherence, combination treatments (naltrexone, acamprosate, medical management, combined behavioral intervention), and drinking outcomes using COMBINE Study data.
Main Methods:
- 1226 patients were randomized into 8 treatment combinations.
- Medication adherence was calculated as the proportion of pills taken.
- Generalized linear mixed models and proportional hazards models analyzed effects on percent days abstinent and time to first heavy drinking day.
Main Results:
- A significant interaction was found between medication adherence, combined behavioral intervention (CBI), and naltrexone.
- In the medical management (MM) only plus placebo group, adherers had significantly higher recovery rates (40%) than non-adherers (10%).
- CBI did not improve recovery rates for naltrexone-treated patients, and its benefit for placebo non-adherers was not significant when CBI was introduced.
Conclusions:
- Combined behavioral intervention (CBI) may protect individuals not adhering to placebo medication.
- CBI provided minimal additional benefit to individuals not adhering to naltrexone.
- For naltrexone non-adherers, relapse appears more related to insufficient medication exposure than CBI's influence.
Related Concept Videos
01:28Drug Therapy
The advent of drug therapy has profoundly shaped modern mental health care, providing targeted treatments for a range of psychological disorders. Psychotherapeutic drugs, classified into antianxiety, antidepressant, and antipsychotic medications, address symptoms across anxiety disorders, mood disorders, and schizophrenia. While these medications have transformed patient outcomes, they require careful management due to their potential side effects and limitations.
Antianxiety Medications
Antianxiety Medications
01:54The Placebo Effect
The placebo effect occurs when people's expectations or beliefs influence or determine their experience in a given situation. In other words, simply expecting something to happen can actually make it happen.
01:23Types of Biopharmaceutical Studies: Controlled and Non-Controlled Approaches
Biopharmaceutical studies constitute a vital field aiming to enhance drug delivery methods and refine therapeutic approaches, drawing upon diverse interdisciplinary knowledge. In research methodologies, the choice between controlled and non-controlled studies significantly influences the study's reliability and accuracy.
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast, controlled...
Non-controlled studies, commonly employed for initial exploration, lack a control group, rendering them susceptible to biases and external influences. In contrast, controlled...
02:07Blind Procedures
Ideally, the people who observe and record the children’s behavior are unaware of who was assigned to the experimental or control group, in order to control for experimenter bias. Experimenter bias refers to the possibility that a researcher’s expectations might skew the results of the study. Remember, conducting an experiment requires a lot of planning, and the people involved in the research project have a vested interest in supporting their hypotheses. If the observers knew which child was...
01:30Combined Effects of Drugs: Antagonism
The combined effects of drugs can result in various interactions, of which an important type is antagonism. Antagonism is a mechanism where one drug inhibits or counteracts the effects of another drug. Antagonism can occur through various means, including receptor binding, allosteric modulation, functional interaction, chemical reactions, and pharmacokinetic processes.
The most common type is receptor antagonism, where one drug acts as an antagonist to block the effects of another drug by...
The most common type is receptor antagonism, where one drug acts as an antagonist to block the effects of another drug by...
01:27Combined Effects of Drugs: Synergism
Synergism is a useful mechanism where combining two or more drugs is more effective than each constituent used alone. Such combinations are also called supra-additive interactions. The drugs collectively enhance the final therapeutic effect by acting on different targets. Another advantage is that the low dose of each constituent drug is sufficient to achieve the desired effect. This helps reduce the duration of therapy and lower the adverse effects of these drugs.
Such synergistic combinations...
Such synergistic combinations...