Evaluating Clinically Meaningful Improvement in Addiction and Mental Health Symptoms in Inpatient Programming

The current project examined the effectiveness of an inpatient treatment center by evaluating clinically significant improvements across measures of functional impairment, addiction-related symptoms, traumatic stress, and psychological distress.

Participants (N = 537) comprised individuals who completed either a 7-week or 9-week inpatient program for addiction and mental health.

Over 75% of participants met the cutoff for clinical improvement based on established reliable change indices on measures of overall functioning and depression. Over 80% met the clinical improvement cutoff for measures of posttraumatic stress and substance dependence. About 61% had clinical improvement on measures of anxiety. Significant reductions in symptoms of anxiety, depression, traumatic stress, substance dependence, and functional impairment were observed from admission to discharge. Change scores on the four outcome measures were significantly related to the decreased likelihood of being classified as "reliably better" compared to "no change" in overall functioning post-treatment completion. Change scores on all variables, except anxiety symptoms, demonstrated no significant relationship with the likelihood of being classified as "reliably worse" in overall functioning post-treatment completion compared to "no change."

Findings support the positive impact of inpatient treatments that adopt integrated care approaches for both individuals with SUD and co-occurring psychological conditions.