Comparison of substance abuse treatment outcomes for inpatients and outpatients

This study was conducted to determine whether inpatient substance abuse tre atment was associated with higher posttreatment abstinence rates than outpa tient treatment. The follow-up sample of 2,476 adults represented 183 Minne sota treatment programs. Composite measures were constructed based on psych ometric analyses of a modified version of the Addiction Severity Index and additional variables. A series of analyses was conducted, including hierarc hical logistic regression and a contingency table analysis addressing multi ple problem severity. For the total sample, setting was not significantly a ssociated with abstinence once other outcome predictors and differences bet ween inpatients and outpatients were controlled for. However; when the logi stic regression analysis was extended to include ail possible two-way inter actions of setting with clinically related severity variables, recent suici dal behavior was found to be a moderator of the association between setting and outcome. Inpatient treatment significantly predicted a higher posttrea tment abstinence rate than outpatient treatment for the small subset of pat ients (16% of the sample) who reported recent suicidal ideation or attempt. (C) 1999 Elsevier Science Inc. All rights reserved.