DEVELOPMENTS IN ALCOHOLISM-TREATMENT RESEARCH - PATIENT TREATMENT MATCHING

This article describes patient-treatment matching, a recent advance in alcoholism treatment research. A general description of the concept i s presented and the challenges patient-treatment matching poses for in vestigators and for treatment providers are described. Project MATCH, a multisite clinical trial designed to test the matching hypothesis is used to illustrate approaches to addressing the research challenge. T wo additional avenues of promising patient-treatment matching research , one relating to patient characteristics and the other to pharmacolog ical treatments, are also summarized. The article concludes with a bri ef prescription for individual providers to implement and test treatme nt matching strategies in their own clinical practice.