Substance Abuse & Batterer Programs in California, US: Factors Associated with Treatment Outcomes

The association between substance abuse and intimate partner violence is quite robust. A promising area to improve treatment for the dual problems of substance abuse and violence perpetration is the identification of client characteristics and organisational and program factors as predictors of health outcomes. 

Therefore, we examined associations of client, organisational and program factors with outcomes in community health settings. Directors of 241 substance use disorder programs (SUDPs) and 235 batterer intervention programs (BIPs) reported outcomes of program completion and substance use and violence perpetration rates at discharge; data collection and processing were completed in 2012. SUDPs having more female, non-white, younger, uneducated, unemployed and lower income clients reported lower completion rates. 

In SUDPs, private, for-profit programs reported higher completion rates than public or private, non-profit programs. SUDPs with lower proportions of their budgets from government sources, and higher proportions from client fees, reported better outcomes. Larger SUDPs had poorer program completion and higher substance use rates. Completion rates in SUDPs were higher when clients could obtain substance- and violence-related help at one location, and programs integrated violence-prevention contracting into care. In BIPs, few client, organisational and programme factors were associated with outcomes, but the significant factors associated with programme completion were consistent with those for SUDPs. 

Publicly owned and larger programs, and SUDPs lacking staff to integrate violence-related treatment, may be at risk of poorer client outcomes, but could learn from programmes that perform well to yield better outcomes.

Below:  Determinants and outcomes of SUDP and BIP linkages. SUDP, substance use disorder programme; BIP, batterer intervention programme; SES, socioeconomic status.

Full article at: http://goo.gl/yACbQg

By: Timko C1, Valenstein H2, Stuart GL3, Moos RH1.

• 1Center for Innovation to Implementation, Department of Veterans Affairs Health Care System and Stanford University Medical Center, Palo Alto, California, USA.
• 2Department of Psychology, University of Washington, Seattle, Washington, USA.
• 3Department of Psychology, University of Tennessee-Knoxville, Knoxville, Tennessee, USA.

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