PHYSICAL PROXIMITY AS A POSSIBLE FACILITATOR IN POST-DETOXIFICATION TREATMENT-SEEKING AMONG CHEMICALLY DEPENDENT VETERANS

The transition into rehabilitative treatment following detoxification is a critical event for most chemically dependent individuals. A host of factors may enhance or impede this transition, yet little or no res earch has been done to shed light on this issue. This paper presents t he results of the fortuitous changing of one variable which appeared t o increase the likelihood of a successful transition, namely, the degr ee of physical proximity of the detox program and the rehab program. R esults indicated a significantly greater proportion of patients succes sfully making the transition from detox to rehab when the programs wer e very close proximally than when they were less close. The role of po ssible patient-to-patient modeling effects was discussed.