Tiet, Quyen Q. et al "Treatments for Patients With Dual Diagnosis: A Review" Alcoholism: Clinical and Experimental Research, Vol 31 No 4 April 2007.
"This review did not find treatments that had been replicated and consistently showed clear advantages over comparison condition for both substance related and other psychiatric outcomes."
"However, rigorous evaluations of the efficacy of treatments for other forms of dual diagnosis [everything but alcohol] are lacking in the literature... Other committees, such as the Depression and Bipolar Support Alliance reviewed existing literature on treatment for individuals with SUDs [substance use disorders] and either major depression or bipolar disorder and concluded that medication, psychosocial and self-help treatments are available and show some evidence of effectiveness, but suggest that more evidence is needed to demonstrate efficacious treatment effects for these classes of dual diagnosis."
Studies Examining Substance-Related disorders and Severe Mental Illness: "there was little evidence showing the advantage of integrated treatment over treatment as usual for patients with substance-related and severe mental illness."
Treatments for Substance-Related Disorder and Comorbid Non specific Mental Illness "... significant reductions in homelessness but no improvement in substance use [drug abuse]."
"The current state of the literature on treatment for individuals with dual diagnosis has many short comings... Therefore determining the efficacy [effectiveness] of many treatments is premature."
"Not only have few treatments been replicated but also few interventions have shown meaningful improvement in both substance and psychiatric outcomes regardless of the kind of comorbid diagnoses."
"Many studies failed to examine the effect of total amount of services received on treatment outcomes."
"However the current status of the literature, unfortunately is so poor that urgent attention by researchers and funding agencies is needed to conduct more and more methodically rigorous research in this area, given the high prevalence of dual-diagnosis."
"Despite a number of promising treatments, there is still a long way before we know what treatments work for which groups of dual-diagnosis [mentally ill drug addicts] patients."
Published August 16, 2007.