Treatment Retention and Changes in Motivation Among Drug Court Probationers

Abstract

This study examined whether Motivational Interviewing (MI), found effective with voluntary entrants to drug treatment, would improve intrinsic motivation and treatment retention among drug court probationers. Probationers were randomly assigned to receive either a two-session MI intervention or a two-session Drug Education (DE) intervention preceding drug-free outpatient counseling. Participants who received MI (n = 72) did not differ from participants who received DE (n = 68) nor from participants who did not attend either MI or DE sessions (n = 56) on changes in motivation during the first month of treatment or in treatment retention. Baseline motivation was inversely related to time in treatment; however, motivation after one month of treatment, and change in motivation from baseline to one month, were independently and positively related to treatment retention.

KEYWORDS:

• drug-free outpatient treatment
• motivation
• motivational interviewing
• treatment retention

This research was supported by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) grant R01 DA13695 entitled “Motivational Enhancement for Drug Court Probationers” to Timothy W. Kinlock, Principal Investigator.

The current study was funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse, Grant No. 1 RO1 DA13695, awarded to the first author. The authors would like to thank the clients and staff of the three participating outpatient drug-free drug abuse treatment programs for participating in the study and Ms. Melissa Harris for manuscript preparation.

Notes

Note. Oneway ANOVA was used to examine differences between the three study groups, except in cases in which the baseline variable was dichotomous, in which case the χ² goodness-of-fit test was employed. SCL-90 GSI is the Hopkins Symptom Checklist-90 Generalized Symptom Index; BDI is the Beck Depression Inventory.

Note. M is the exponentiated least squares mean; exp(b) is the exponentiated regression coefficient.

Note. exp (b) is the exponentiated regression coefficient, known as the odds ratio.