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The role of the early therapeutic alliance in predicting drug treatment dropout

Drug and Alcohol DependencePublished 18 November 2005
Petra Meier, Michael Donmall, Patrick McElduff, Christine Barrowclough, Richard F Heller
Citations155
SJR quartileQ1
SJR score1.66
SNIP1.35

TL;DR

The findings of this study stress the importance of treatment professionals attending to the therapeutic alliance in drug treatment, as counsellors' alliance ratings were found to be amongst the strongest predictors of dropout.

Abstract

The findings of this study stress the importance of treatment professionals attending to the therapeutic alliance in drug treatment, as counsellors' alliance ratings were found to be amongst the strongest predictors of dropout. Using alliance measures as clinical tools may help treatment practitioners to become aware of the risk of disengagement early on. Prospective studies are needed to evaluate whether strategies of reallocating clients with poor alliances to different counsellors lead to improvements in retention.

Keywords

PsychologyMedicine