Psychiatric symptomatology in crack cocaine abusers

Many substance abusers present with elevated scores on self-report measures of psychopathological symptoms. We decided to examine this in a sample of 194 crack cocaine abusers. Results indicated that these individuals reported significantly greater psychopathological distress than manual-provided norms, and that this distress was not related to recency of cocaine use. Rank order correlation suggests that a pattern of scores specific to cocaine abusers may exist. Finally, while intake scores of psychopathological distress did not predict treatment retention/outcome, those successfully completing 12 weeks of outpatient treatment were both cocaine abstinent and less psychiatrically distressed.