Evaluation Study of the Effectiveness of a High- Versus Low-frequency Telephone-based and Sort Message-based (Sms) Continuing Care Provided to Patients Who Have Achieved a 12 Week In-patient Treatment for Alcohol Dependence

Background

Alcohol dependence is a major public health problem. Because of its relapsing nature of the disorder, alcohol and also drug dependence are now thought to be chronic disorders for many patients.Therefore, continuing care has become an important element in the treatment of alcohol dependence. Continuing care is referred to as ongoing care after an initial phase of intensive care and can be provided in different modalities and formats such as group counseling, telephone-based counseling, individual therapy and more. However, many substance-dependence patients do not attend any continuing care or abandon attending care to early. To approach this problem more flexible continuing care protocols that abstain from the traditional face-to-face counseling sessions have been developed to promote better adherence an improve disease management over time. Studies on continuing care revealed mixed results that depend on the duration of the intervention and the method of delivery services. Longer planned intervention and active approaches that bring the intervention to the patients seem to be more effective than traditional approaches in the management of addiction. For instance studies investigating telephone-based continuing care for patients with alcohol dependence have shown to be an effective form of step-dow treatment after a previous stabilisation treatment program and provide extended recovery support. Results revealed that telephone-based continuing care produced higher rates of abstinence than face-to-face standard continuing care, especially patient with low to moderate risk scores benefited therefrom. Furthermore, it is a feasible instrument to implement a low-budget follow-up system in routine outcome monitoring.

Objective

In this study, the investigators want to evaluate the effectiveness of a high- versus low-frequency telephone-based and a short message-based continuing care provided for patients who have achieved a 12 week in-patient treatment for alcohol dependence. The investigators hypothesize that telephone-based continuing care should help the patients to bridge the gap of an intensive in-patient treatment to out-patient environment and working life.

Methods