Does recent criminal involvement matter? A study of women with co-occurring disorders in a multisite national trial

Abstract

Aims: To investigate criminal involvement in relation to treatment outcome in a multisite study. We compared 381 women with recent criminal involvement (RCI, n = 381; past 3 months) to 681 women with no lifetime history of criminal involvement (NCI, n = 681) at baseline and at 6 months from start of treatment (RCI 6 mos: n = 282; NCI 6 mos: n = 556).

Methods: Outcome measures were alcohol severity, drug severity, general mental health, and PTSD symptoms. We compared RCI versus NCI women at baseline and compared RCI versus NCI women from baseline to 6 months by treatment condition. Treatment conditions were integrated care for co-occurring disorders versus treatment-as-usual. Age and baseline scores were covariates.

Results: In the baseline comparison, RCI women were younger, had greater drug addiction severity but better mental health than NCI women. In the over-time analysis, RCI and NCI 6-month clinical outcome scores improved irrespective of intervention type.

Keywords:

• criminal involvement
• mental health
• substance use
• treatment outcome
• women