Improving the retention rate for residential treatment of substance abuse by sequential intervention for social anxiety

Improving the retention rate for residential treatment of substance abuse by sequential intervention for social anxiety

BMC Psychiatry, February 2014

24533512

Petra K Staiger, Michael Kyrios, James S Williams, Nicolas Kambouropoulos, Alexandra Howard, Stefan Gruenert

Residential drug rehabilitation is often seen as a treatment of last resort for people with severe substance abuse issues. These clients present with more severe symptoms, and frequent psychiatric comorbidities relative to outpatients. Given the complex nature of this client group, a high proportion of clients seeking treatment often do not enter treatment, and of those who do, many exit prematurely. Given the highly social nature of residential drug rehabilitation services, it has been argued that social anxieties might decrease the likelihood of an individual entering treatment, or increase the likelihood of them prematurely exiting treatment. The current paper reports on the protocol of a Randomised Control Trial which examined whether treatment of social anxiety prior to entry to treatment improves entry rates and retention in residential drug rehabilitation.