Individual Characteristics and Response to Contingency Management Treatment for Cocaine Addiction

Voucher-based contingency management (CM) research has demonstrated efficacy for treating cocaine addiction, but few studies have examined associations between individual baseline characteristics and response to CM treatments. The aim of this study, involving 50 cocaine outpatients receiving CM for cocaine addiction, was to assess the impact of baseline characteristics on abstinence outcomes after six months of treatment. Patients who were abstinent after six months of treatment accounted for 58% of the sample. Patients with higher scores on the Alcohol area of the EuropASI and patients that were non-abstinent during the first month of treatment were less likely to achieve abstinence. These outcome predictors have implications both for treatment research and for clinical practice. Patients who do not respond early to treatment may need a more intensive intervention, and concomitant problematic alcohol use should be detected and treated. The remaining baseline variables examined were not statistically significant predictors of abstinence. This finding is important for the generalizability of CM across the range of individual characteristics of treatment-seeking cocaine abusers.