An evaluation of the therapeutic programme conducted by the Southern Regional Alcohol-Abuse Treatment Centre: Study on the programme's results one year after discharge from inpatient care

Given the clinical and social problems caused by the consumption of alcohol in most industrialised countries, there is a strong need to develop and ev aluate the effectiveness of integrated care programmes. In this study, the authors describe the results observed in 124 sequentially admitted subjects at various points throughout the course of the first year after their disc harge from the Southern Regional Alcohol-Abuse Treatment Centre (CRAS) in L isbon, Portugal. An inpatient stay at this unit of CRAS lasts for between 5 and 7 weeks and implies that the patient must submit him/herself to a ther apeutic model which has been adapted from the Minnesota model. At the end o f the year under study 44.3% of the patients were still abstinent 40.3% wer e consuming alcohol and 15.4% did not reply. 51 patients (41.1% of the init ial sample) were still in regular contact with CRAS for further treatment a t that point. The variable that was found to possess the most significant a ssociation with a favourable outcome was adherence to the therapeutic progr amme over the course of that year. Copyright (C) 2001 S. Karger AG. Basel.