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Integrating Computerized Linguistic and Social Network Analyses to Capture Addiction Recovery Capital in an Online Community
Published on: May 31, 2019
Visual representation tools for improving addiction treatment outcomes
Michael Czuchry1, Dianna Newbern-McFarland, Donald F Dansereau
1Department of Psychology, Texas Lutheran University, 1000 W. Court St., Seguin, Texas 78115, USA. mczuchry@tlu.edu
Abstract:
To examine the effectiveness of two visual representation counseling techniques for reducing illicit drug use, participants were randomly assigned to receive standard treatment "as usual" or standard treatment supplemented with free mapping or free plus guide mapping. Each counselor delivered all types of treatment to participants to control for differences in counselor characteristics (e.g., experience, empathy). Eighty-two participants who had received one year of methadone maintenance treatment and had urinalysis and self-report data for illicit drug use six months after treatment were examined. Compared to participants receiving standard treatment, participants randomly assigned to the free plus guide mapping condition had significantly lower opiate use based on urinalysis and self-report data. These results support the use of the free plus guide visual representation strategy and provide evidence for the concurrent validity of self-report measures of illicit drug use.
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