Last year, a study questioned whether buprenorphine patients should be allowed to drive because 60% tested positive for other drugs. Now, another study reaches similar findings: Background Opioids have been shown to impair psychomotor and cognitive functioning in healthy volunteers with no history of opioid abuse. Few or no significant effects have been found in opioid-dependant … Continue reading Road traffic crashes and prescribed methadone and buprenorphine
Category: Research
Life long?
Yesterday morning I re-posted from an article on the positive finding publication bias in psychology journals and how these findings live on in spite of the fact that they are never replicated and rely on shakey analysis. [audio: http://www.podtrac.com/pts/redirect.mp3/podcast.thisamericanlife.org/podcast/436.mp3%5D Then, I'm driving to work and listen to last week's episode of This American Life discussing psychopaths. It … Continue reading Life long?
Hard to kill
Nature has a new article on the troubling shelf life of bad psychology research: Positive results in psychology can behave like rumours: easy to release but hard to dispel. They dominate most journals, which strive to present new, exciting research. Meanwhile, attempts to replicate those studies, especially when the findings are negative, go unpublished, languishing in … Continue reading Hard to kill
n=8
Published in a prestigious journal with an 'n' of 8. Unbelievable. Participants Eight cocaine-using adults. Measurements Subjects completed nine experimental sessions in which they were pre-treated with 0, 100 or 200 mg oral immediate release bupropion. Ninety minutes later they sampled an intranasal cocaine dose [4 (placebo), 15 or 45 mg] and made six choices between that dose and … Continue reading n=8
Addiction diagnoses to rise
I've posted before about problems with the proposed approach to addiction in the DSM-5. These changes were intended to clear up language problems, specifically the conflation of dependence and addiction leading to "false positives" for addiction. Looks like the DSM-5 is causing its own language problems before it's even adopted. [emphasis mine] Many scholars believe … Continue reading Addiction diagnoses to rise
Science for spirituality
Whatever one thinks of AA's spirituality, research suggests that thinking about God enhances self-control: “The world is full of people who are fastidious about Biblical rules but can’t say no to fast food,” says Rabbi David Wolpe of Sinai Temple in Los Angeles. “There’s something about rules from God that make them easier to follow.” According to … Continue reading Science for spirituality
“as addictive as cocaine”
Ha! If I read the phrase “as addictive as cocaine” one more time I’m going to hit the bottle. Anything that is either overused, pleasurable or has become vaguely associated with the dopamine system is compared to cocaine. In fact, here is a list of things claimed to be as addictive as the illegal nose … Continue reading “as addictive as cocaine”
Smoking cessation in treatment
Looks like we still have a lot to learn about helping alcoholics and drug addicts quit smoking, but intensive smoking cessation interventions do not appear to do harm: The intensive smoking cessation intervention yielded a higher short-term smoking quit rate without jeopardizing sobriety.
Group treatment has long term benefits
From the journal, Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research: Background: Group psychotherapy (PT) is one of the most common interventions used to treat alcohol dependence (AD), and it is assumed to be effective. Despite its common clinical use, long-term trials that have been conducted to examine the efficacy of group PT in the treatment of outpatients with AD … Continue reading Group treatment has long term benefits
Youth Recovery Contexts
Another study brings good news about adolescents and 12 step recovery: Results The proportion attending 12-step meetings was relatively low across follow-up (24 to 29%), but more frequent attendance was independently associated with greater abstinence in concurrent and, to a lesser extent, lagged models. An 8-item composite measure of 12-step involvement did not enhance outcomes … Continue reading Youth Recovery Contexts
Recovery Review 