Evaluating drug therapy in addiction

Question 1

A03 - Supporting research?

Answer 1

P - Stead et al (2012)

E - Reviewed 150 studies into the effectivness of NRT and found it to be more effective than placebeo treatments or no treatment at all.

E - With NRT users up to 70% more likely to still be abstaining from smoking 6 months after quitting them than the other groups

L - Therefore, we can assume that the drug therapy largely helps smokers in over-coming their addiction (even long-term).

• Stead et al (2012)
• 150 studies
• placebo
• NRT
• 70%
• 6 months

Question 2

A03 - more supporting evidence?

Answer 2

E - Hughes et al (2014) carried out a meta-analysis that included 44 trials of Bupropion as the sole treatment for smoking addiction and found that those taking the drug had significanlty higher chance of a quit attempt being successful after at least 6 months compared to control group.

L - This shows how drug treatment is a very effective method and has credible evidence.

• Hughes et al (2014)
• meta-analysis
• 44 trials
• Bupropion
• 6 months

Question 3

A03 - Less effort

Answer 3

P - Drug therapies like NRT may require less effort from the individiual than cognitive therapies.

COMP 1 - on the 1 hand, NRT’s can simply be taken at the users own pace. Inhalers are easy to use, freely available and don’t require much effort to use.

COMP 2 - However, cognitive therapies can be difficult to access and need a hufe amount of work.

E - For example, the HW given from CBT take time, as do the required work in identifying and challenging irrational addiction based beliefs.

L - Therefore, there are huge and differences in the tasks placed upon the client in terms of biological and cognitive treatments, something that may actually impact the likelihood of success.

• NRT
• COMP 1
• COMP 2
• Inhalers