Multiple expressions of addiction: Psychosocial correlates and clinical trajectories of treatment seekers

Abstract

This paper describes the first of its kind research protocol and initial findings of a prospective study focusing on a cohort of treatment seekers at the Integrated Centre on Addiction Prevention and Treatment, Tung Wah Group of Hospitals. This project established a systematic study protocol that has been woven into the Centre’s standard clinical services. This protocol reflects the project’s overall goal of establishing an epidemiology of treatment seekers and advancing current knowledge about the addiction syndrome and its treatment. These goals diverge into four interconnected lines of scientific enquiry: (1) establishing the extent of psychiatric comorbidity among addiction treatment seekers; (2) exploring the psychosocial and treatment trajectory correlates among different expressions of addiction; (3) evaluating the change in addiction severity and related psychosocial functioning throughout treatment; and (4) identifying the addiction, psychosocial, and treatment variables that influence clinical outcome. The focus on investigating local treatment seekers allow for ample opportunities to derive clinically meaningful findings, which would substantially improve evidence-based and culturally-sensitive clinical service. Recommendations that would improve addiction reatment, based on the initial findings, are discussed.