Medications for Substance Use Disorders

Medications can help clients safely and comfortably withdraw from substances such as alcohol, opiates, or sedatives if they have a physical addiction. The medicines used will depend on the drug or drugs on which they are dependent. Medication-assisted treatment is the use of medications approved by the US Food and Drug Administration, in combination with counseling and behavioral therapies, to provide a whole-client approach to the treatment of opioid, alcohol, or tobacco use disorders. The goals of this chapter are to learn about types of medication that aid recovery from a substance use disorder, to understand the reasons why some people may have problems with medication, to learn about withdrawal symptoms and medications that help, to understand the effects of drug and alcohol use on psychiatric medications, and to determine whether or not a client needs medication to help with his or her substance disorder.

Socio-Demographic Profile Of Psychoactive Substance Users Attending a Centre For Mental Health, Rupandehi

Introduction: Psychoactive substance use is known since the origin of mankind and has been global problem that is influenced by social, economic, political and psychosocial factors. The menace of psychoactive substance abuse is that it is not only a socially unacceptable reality but in itself a disorder and is emerging as a major public health burden. Material and Method: A descriptive study was carried out with the view to find out the prevalence of psychoactive substance disorder in de-addiction unit at Centre for Mental Health (Chautari Nepal Health Foundation) in Rupandehi district of province-5, Nepal. All patients who were admitted during the study period with psychoactive substance use Disorder were interviewed by using semi structured performa for addiction. Total 387 patients with psychoactive substance dependence (according ICD-10) were enrolled in the study after providing written informed consent. The data was analyzed by using descriptive and inferential statistics with SPSS software version 16. Results: Among 387 psychoactive substance users, majority of them (34.1%) were in the age group 35 years and above, 57.1% were belonged to Brahmin/ Chhetri ethnic group. Greater proportion 44.4% of psychoactive substance abuser had started taking the drugs between the age of 16-20 years of age. Alcohol was most commonly used psychoactive substance as 47.5% were dependent to alcohol. Conclusion: Based on the study findings, it is concluded that addiction is a global burden. Youth is a vulnerable group. Therefore, special attention, Psycho education related to psychoactive substance should be started before adolescent.

Delays in making initial treatment contact after the first onset of mental health disorders in the Argentinean Study of Mental Health Epidemiology

Aims.While there are effective treatments for psychiatric disorders, many individuals with such disorders do not receive treatment and those that do often take years to get into treatment. Information regarding treatment contact failure and delay in Argentina is needed to guide public health policy and planning. Therefore, this study aimed to provide data on prompt treatment contact, lifetime treatment contact, median duration of treatment delays and socio-demographic predictors of treatment contact after the first onset of a mental disorder.Methods.The Argentinean Study of Mental Health Epidemiology (EAESM) is a multistage probability sample representative of adults (aged 18+) living in large urban areas of Argentina. A total of 2116 participants were evaluated with the World Mental Health Composite International Diagnostic Interview to assess psychiatric diagnosis, treatment contact and delay.Results.Projections of cases that will make treatment contact by 50 years taken from a survival curve suggest that the majority of individuals with a mood (100%) or anxiety disorder (72.5%) in Argentina whose disorder persist for a sufficient period of time eventually make treatment contact while fewer with a substance disorder do so (41.6%). Timely treatment in the year of onset is rare (2.6% for a substance disorder, 14.6% for an anxiety disorder and 31.3% of those with a mood disorder) with mean delays between 8 years for mood disorders and 21 years for anxiety disorders. Younger cohorts are more likely to make treatment contact than older cohorts, whereas those with earlier ages of disorder onset are least likely to make treatment contact. Those with anxiety disorders and major depressive disorder are more likely to make treatment contact when they have comorbid disorders, whereas those with substance use disorders are less likely.Conclusions.Argentina needs to implement strategies to get individuals with substance use disorders into treatment, and to reduce treatment delays for all, but particularly to target early detection and treatment among children and adolescents.

Anxiety disorders and substance abuse

IntroductionPatients with anxiety disorders are more vulnerable to develop other comorbid conditions. In particular, large epidemiological studies show a strong association between different anxiety disorders and substance use disorders.ObjectivesTo show the prevalence of major anxiety disorders and the consumption of different substances. As well as the particular characteristics of this dual diagnosis and treatments that have proven more effective.MethodsExhaustive review of all the material published on this topic in the recent years.ConclusionsNearly 24% of patients with anxiety disorder suffer from a comorbid substance disorder use in their lifetime (17.9% diagnosis of alcohol abuse or dependence diagnosis and 11.9% of abuse or dependence on other drugs). Dual patients show a number of distinctive features, such as more frequency in males, family history of alcohol or other substances abuse and behavioral problems, early parental loss among others.Disclosure of interestThe authors have not supplied their declaration of competing interest.

The GAIN Short Screener (GSS) as a Predictor of Future Arrest or Incarceration among Youth Presenting to Substance Use Disorder (SUD) Treatment

The National Institutes of Health (NIH) data harmonization project on existing measures ( www.phenx.org ) has recommended the Global Appraisal of Individual Needs (GAIN)–-Short Screener (GSS) as one of the most reliable, valid, efficient, and inexpensive general behavioral health screeners to quickly identify people with internalizing and externalizing mental health disorders, substance use disorders, and crime/violence problems. The present study examined how well the four GSS screeners and their sum predict future arrest or incarceration among individuals entering treatment for a substance use disorder. Using a cross-validation design, a diverse sample of 6,815 youth with substance use disorders was split into a development sample and a validation sample. Overall, results found the GSS's crime and violence screener (CVScr) and the substance disorder screener (SDScr) to be the two best predictors of arrest/incarceration within the 12 months following treatment intake. Additionally, we found that these screeners could be used to categorize individuals into three groups (low risk, moderate risk, high risk) and this simplified classification had good predictive validity (Area Under the Curve = 0.601). In sum, the GSS's predictive validity was similar to other instruments that have been developed to predict risk for recidivism; however, the GSS takes only a fraction of the time to collect (ie, approximately 2–3 minutes for just these two screeners).