A Descriptive Overview of Treatment Modalities in Federally Funded Drug Abuse Treatment Programs

This study presents descriptive information on treatment modality units of drug treatment clinics participating in the Client Oriented Data Acquisition Process (CODAP) and the National Drug Abuse Treatment Utilization Survey (NDATUS) data systems. The units described were (1) drug-free outpatient-nonopiate orientation (DFO-N), (2) drug-free outpatient-opiate orientation (DFO-O), (3) methadone maintenance (MM), (4) drug-free residential (DFR), (5) detoxification-outpatient (DTOP), (6) detoxification-inpatient (DTIP), and (7) day care (DC). The major focus was on the first five units since there were relatively few DTIP and DC units which met the criteria for inclusion in the study. The study was based on 1,077 units. These units represented 73,856 admissions in the first half of 1977. The different types of modality units were compared on client flow information, client aggregate background characteristics, client aggregate drug use at admission, client aggregate outcomes at discharge (drug use, employment, and arrests), client aggregate retention in treatment, and characteristics of the clinics in which the modality units were located. There were major differences among the modality types on client flow and client aggregate data at admission (background and drug use). Because of this, outcomes at discharge were not compared across modalities, but differences between corresponding admission and discharge variables were noted.