Journal of Addiction Research & Therapy
Open Access

Abstract

Arecently completed NIDA-funded pilot study reveals that the reasons people delay treatment entry change as they continue to seek treatment. Additionally, the study has revealed that online treatment-seekers who are only motivated to seek help but who did not actually enter treatment experienced no significant change in drug use behavior. These issues are important, even crucial, to the Substance Use Disorder (SUD) field since only 10% of those who experience SUD enter treatment and only 15% seek it. Knowledge about and tools to combat barriers to entry are needed if efficacious treatment is to have an opportunity to improve SUD sufferers well-being. The talk will review the literature on barriers to treatment entry for SUD and other health treatment and will challenge attendees to consider that the treatment industry itself is partly to blame for keeping many patients away. Available treatment options, variability in patient needs, and the improvement of tools to maximize the entry of those who need help into appropriate treatment will be discussed. Future research direction will be proposed, especially when it comes to utilizing online treatment seeking and professional referral sources, the two most common sources of treatment referrals in the health field

Biography

Adi Jaffe completed his Ph.D. at from The University of California in Los Angeles and postdoctoral studies from UCLAs Semel Institute for Neuroscience and Human Behavior. He is the co-founder and executive director of research for Alternatives Addiction Treatment, a premier outpatient SUD treatment provider in Beverly Hills, California. He also founded and developed the first algorithm-driven SUD treatment-search tool that was used in the described study. He has published more than a dozen papers in reputed journals and serves on the editorial boards of a number of SUD journals