Background: Research exploring social support and length of stay within sober living environments can be essential in understanding factors related to confidence in abstinence (abstinence self-efficacy).Objectives: This study examined whether length of stay mediated the relationship between social support and abstinence self-efficacy, and whether sex differences occurred between social support and length of stay.Methods: Oxford House residents from various recovery homes (N = 352, age range 18-70, (M = 37.54, SD = 10.74), 52% male, 48% female) participated in this study. A moderated mediation analysis assessed whether sex altered the relationship of length of stay and social support within the indirect pathway of social support and abstinence self-efficacy.Results: Social support significantly predicted length of stay (b = 1.05, SE = .35, p = .003) and length of stay predicted abstinence self-efficacy (b = .08, SE = .04, p = .05). Social support did not predict abstinence self-efficacy (b = .15, SE = .09, p = .10). Sex did not moderate social support and length of stay (index = -.03, BootSE = .03, 95% CI -.09, .006). Thus, results did not confirm a mediating or moderating effect. However, sex was a significant covariate on length of stay (b = -.39, SE = .13, p = .002) where males (M = 1.49, SD = 1.21) demonstrated longer stays than females (M = 1.11, SD = 1.22).Conclusions: Findings support the importance of bolstering length of stay among all residents within recovery housing programs, as results indicated similar outcomes across sex.
Garrity et al. (Thu,) studied this question.