Here is another great blog post from Dr. David McCartney of Lothians & Edinburgh Abstinence Programme (LEAP) on the Recovery Review blog.
‘Recovery journeys are dynamic, take time and for those who receive treatment, may need several episodes. For some, residential rehab is part of the journey, just as harm reduction interventions can also be part of the journey. However, residential rehabilitation is a complex intervention and complex interventions are difficult to study.
In Scotland, the government is making rehab easier to access and growing the number of beds. This development is not without its critics. Some feel the resource needs to ‘follow the evidence’ – in other words into harm reduction and MAT interventions. This all-the-eggs-in-one-basket position would reinforce the rigid barriers that make rehab the domain of the wealthy or the lucky.
‘Follow the evidence’ in this context is a refrain that implies that there is no evidence that rehab works to help people achieve their goals and improve their quality of life. That is simply not true. Last month saw the publication of a literature review on residential rehab by Scottish Government researchers. It’s a thorough piece of work. This summary of the research evidence provides verification that “that residential rehabilitation is associated with improvements across a variety of outcomes relating to substance use, health and quality of life”.
