Evaluating Treatment Efficacy
Published in: Interventions for Addiction: Comprehensive Addictive Behaviors and Disorders, Volume 3 / Editor-in-Chief Peter M. Miller (San Diego, CA: Academic Press, 2013), Ch. 61, p. 589-597
Posted on RAND.org on January 01, 2013
In this chapter, we discuss behavioral treatment efficacy (non-pharmacological) for substance use. Because the design of a treatment efficacy study is one of the most important elements to consider when evaluating the quality of the study, it is discussed in the first section "Study Design Considerations." In the section "Analytic Methods to Evaluate Treatment Efficacy", we discuss analytic issues in treatment efficacy research, such as study drop-out, baseline differences between study conditions, and comparing outcomes across groups and studies. In the section "How to Interpret Results", we discuss how to interpret findings from both a statistical and clinical standpoint. In sum, this article represents current knowledge about designing and interpreting treatment efficacy research.
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