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                        JeffNEWS, January 10, 1995
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NIH Grant Will Help Addictions Program Learn More About Effectively Matching
Patient Coping Styles, Treatment Strategies, Counselor Characteristics
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Professionals involved in substance-abuse programs continually seek to
discover and develop enhanced treatment strategies that produce better
outcomes for their patients.	

The addictions program of the department of psychiatry and human
behavior has just received from the National Institute on Drug Abuse of
the National Institutes of Health a five-year, $1.7-million grant that
should help accomplish this goal.

The grant will fund a study to help establish what difference

   o varying types of treatment

   o counselors with different approaches make on patients with differing
     styles of coping with problems.

The patients in the study, who are addicted to a variety of different
substances, are enrolled in 12-week, individual counseling programs.

Edward Gottheil, MD, PhD, professor of psychiatry and human behavior and
director of addiction programs, is principal investigator of the grant,
"Matching Coping Styles and Treatment Strategies." Charles C. Thornton,
PhD, associate professor in the department, is co-principal
investigator, and Stephen P. Weinstein, PhD, clinical professor in the
department, is a co-investigator.

"We will compare the effectiveness of two types of individual counseling
- more structured and less structured - by having the same counselors
provide both types of therapy to patients assigned to them on a random
basis," Dr. Gottheil said. 

Secondly, the researchers will compare and document the progress of
patients whose coping styles match the type of treatment they receive
with those whose styles differ from their type of treatment.

 "We already have some idea that people whose coping styles are more
dependent and who have lower conceptual and developmental levels respond
better to a more structured treatment approach; while those who are more
independent and have higher conceptual and developmental levels will
fare better with less structured approaches," Dr. Weinstein said.

The study's third objective is to determine the extent to which
differences in the effectiveness of individual counselors combine or
interact with both treatment styles and patient coping styles to affect
patient outcome.

"We'll also examine the relationships among the factors mentioned above
and compare their validity in predicting success with this group of
multi-substance abusers," Dr. Thornton said.

Finally, the investigators will analyze the patients' perceptions of
their counselors and of the benefits received from them; of factors that
may predict whether patients stay in treatment programs and how the
counselors' own coping styles affect their clients.


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Information provided by:  Editor, JeffNEWS
                          (215) 955-6204
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