Participation in Religious Activities During Contingency Management Interventions Is Associated with Substance Use Treatment Outcomes

Abstract

Many drug abuse treatment programs encourage participation in religious activities, yet there is scant research regarding their effectiveness. Contingency management (CM) interventions sometimes reinforce the completion of non-drug related activities, and church attendance is a popular activity. Cocaine abusers (n = 184) randomized to CM interventions were categorized based on whether or not they engaged in three or more religious activities. Engagers in religious activities (n = 34) remained in treatment longer, were abstinent for longer durations, and submitted more substance-negative samples than non-engagers (n = 150), even after controlling for number of activities completed overall. Thus, encouraging religious involvement during CM treatment may improve during treatment outcomes.

Adapting a peer recovery coach-delivered behavioral activation intervention for problematic substance use in a medically underserved community in Baltimore City

“…While participants listed several activities, such as spending time with friends and family, volunteering, and arts and music, two activity categories arose as most salient: sports/exercise and religious activities. These specific categories are consistent with research describing the role of religious activity, including associated spirituality and social support [70][71][72][73], and sports and exercise [74,75] in supporting recovery from problematic substance use. Furthermore, these reflect the reinforcing, substance-free activities listed in qualitative interviews among a population with problematic substance use in a South African HIV care setting [44], indicating the potential role of these activities in BA for problematic substance use across cultures.…”

The Religious and Spiritual Dimensions of Cutting Down and Stopping Cocaine Use

“…While research has examined the contribution of religion and spirituality in improving substance use treatment outcomes among persons in treatment (Hester, 2002; Petry, Lewis, & Ostvik-White, 2008; White, 2008), little is known about how religion and spirituality influence current substance users’ attempts to reduce or abstain from alcohol and drug use, especially illicit drug users, including persons who use crack and/or powder cocaine (Chitwood et al, 2008). In particular, there is relatively little understanding of how these factors play out in the experiences of African American cocaine users in the South where the Black church continues to play a fundamental role in the lives of African Americans by providing informal services, including counseling and guidance (Blank, Mahmood, Fox, & Guterbock, 2002).…”

Application of a Fath-Based Integration Tool to Assess Mental and Physical Health Interventions

“…Reliability of the tool was tested by use of an inter-rater procedure. Initially, the entire team used the tool to rate five studies ( Chang et al, 2007 , Koenig et al, 2015 , Koszycki et al, 2014 , Petry et al, 2008 , Schoenthaler et al, 2015 ) that were randomly selected from the 36 studies, revealing strong inter-rater agreement for three of the five studies. After discussing the variation of the remaining two (e.g., how scores were derived) and reviewing methods for extracting faith practices and faith measures from articles, each team member independently re-rated the two outlier studies ( Chang et al, 2007 , Koszycki et al, 2014 ).…”