ArticleThe British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners2003
Does methadone maintenance treatment based on the new national guidelines work in a primary care setting?
Article in The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners, 2003. The graph could read no effect estimate from its abstract, so it casts no vote on the map. Cited by 17 papers.
What it found
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Trials whose registry record cites this paper, or whose number appears in the abstract. A trial that started after this paper was published is citing it as background, not reporting it.
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Who cites it
17 citing papers in PubMed, 38 citations in OpenAlex.
- Methadone induction in primary care for opioid dependence: a pragmatic randomized trial (ANRS Methaville).PloS one · 2014Trial
- Influence of site differences between urban and rural American and Central European opioid-dependent pregnant women and neonatal outcome characteristics.European addiction research · 2012Trial
- Effect of low-threshold methadone maintenance therapy for people who inject drugs on HIV incidence in Vancouver, BC, Canada: an observational cohort study.The lancet. HIV · 2015Observational
- Predicting biopsychosocial outcomes for heroin users in primary care treatment: a prospective longitudinal cohort study.The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2013Article
- Risk factors for fatal outcome in patients with opioid dependence treated with methadone in a family medicine setting in Croatia.Croatian medical journal · 2013Article
- Just call it "treatment".Addiction science & clinical practice · 2012Article
- Service use and barriers to care among heroin users: results from a national survey.The American journal of drug and alcohol abuse · 2010Article
- Can a targeted GP-led clinic improve outcomes for street sex workers who use heroin?The British journal of general practice : the journal of the Royal College of General Practitioners · 2010Article
- Problem drug use the public health imperative: what some of the literature says.Substance abuse treatment, prevention, and policy · 2009Article
- Factors associated with mortality in Scottish patients receiving methadone in primary care: retrospective cohort study.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2009Article
- Prevalence of problem alcohol use among patients attending primary care for methadone treatment.BMC family practice · 2009Article
- Chronic illness and multimorbidity among problem drug users: a comparative cross sectional pilot study in primary care.BMC family practice · 2009Article
- Factors affecting willingness to provide buprenorphine treatment.Journal of substance abuse treatment · 2009Article
- Office-based maintenance treatment of opioid dependence: how does it compare with traditional approaches?CNS drugs · 2008Review
- Methadone tolerance testing in drug misusers.BMJ (Clinical research ed.) · 2006Review
- Difficulties associated with outpatient management of drug abusers by general practitioners. A cross-sectional survey of general practitioners with and without methadone patients in Switzerland.BMC family practice · 2005Article
- The effect of methadone maintenance therapy on harm reduction in opiate dependents in kerman socio-behavioral consulting centers.Addiction & healthArticle
Corrections and comments
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Authors and funding
4 authors at 1 institution in 1 country.
Funding
No grant is acknowledged in the PubMed record.
Abstract
backgroundGeneral practitioners (GPs) are being encouraged to treat more drug users but there are few studies to demonstrate the effectiveness of primary care treatment.
aimTo determine whether patients retained on methadone maintenance treatment for one year in a modern British primary care setting, with prescribing protocols based on the new national guidelines, can achieve similar harm reduction outcomes to those demonstrated in other settings, using objective outcome measures where available. DESIGN OF STUDY: Longitudinal cohort study.
settingThe Primary Care Clinic for Drug Dependence, Sheffield.
methodThe intervention consisted of a methadone maintenance treatment provided by GPs with prescribing protocols based on the 1999 national guidelines. The first 96 eligible consenting patients entering treatment were recruited; 65 completed the study. Outcome measures were current drug use, HIV risk-taking behaviour, social functioning, criminal activity, and mental and physical health, supplemented by urinalysis and criminal record data.
resultsFrequency of heroin use was reduced from a mean of 3.02 episodes per day (standard deviation [SD] = 1.73) to a mean of 0.22 episodes per day (SD = 0.54), (chi 2 = 79.48, degrees of freedom [df] = 2, P < 0.001), confirmed by urinalysis. Mean numbers of convictions and cautions were reduced by 62% (z = 3.378, P < 0.001) for all crime. HIV risk-taking behaviour, social functioning, and physical and psychological wellbeing all showed significant improvements.
conclusionPatients retained on methadone maintenance treatment for one year in a primary care setting can achieve improvements on a range of harm reduction outcomes similar to those shown by studies in other, often more highly structured programmes.
Indexed as
Identifiers
12939891PMC1314620W1840674901What OpenQuestion holds
Registered trials
Read under generation 80e0d062 · epoch 390. Bibliography from PubMed, PubMed Central and OpenAlex; grants from NIH RePORTER; trial links from ClinicalTrials.gov; estimates, votes and beliefs from the OpenQuestion graph.