RELATIONSHIP BETWEEN TIME SPENT IN TREATMENT AND CLIENT OUTCOMES FROMTHERAPEUTIC COMMUNITIES

Research found that therapeutic communities and other types of residen tial programs are effective in reducing drug use, unemployment, and cr iminal behavior and that length of time spent in treatment is an impor tant predictor of client outcomes from programs. Studies vary consider ably, however, in terms of the amount of time they found clients need to stay in treatment to produce those outcomes. Data collected for the Treatment Outcome Prospective Study (TOPS) were analyzed to explore t he relationship between time spent in treatment and client outcomes fr om therapeutic communities and other types of residential drug treatme nt programs. The analysis took into account client characteristics and whether clients received drug treatment during the follow-up year. Th e results indicate there is a stronger relationship between time spent in treatment and client outcomes from therapeutic communities than wa s suggested in earlier analysis of TOPS data.