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drinkanddrugsnews
| September 2013
Evidence |
Research
www.drinkanddrugsnews.com
about addiction and its treatment preceded by decades the advent of
Findings
– in the case of the editor, back to 1975. With the groundwork already done,
this ambitious superstructure could be constructed.
In May 2013, the result was the Matrices – one for harm reduction and
treatment of problems related to the use of illegal drugs
(http://bit.ly/1ca1bA3), and one for brief interventions and treatment of
alcohol-related problems (http://bit.ly/12aGdQd).
The best way to envisage them is of course to take a look. We liken them
to a grid-map of territories in the alcohol and drug treatment worlds,
segmented to reflect practical divisions in the delivery and organisation of
services. Across the top are five columns, moving from the intervention itself
(Is it feasible? Does it work? How does it work?) to the contexts within which
interventions are implemented – by practitioners, who are managed and work
Exploring
Findings
’ new matrices opens up a vast resource
of addiction treatment evidence that no practitioner should
be without. Editor
Mike Ashton
gives a guided tour
INTO THE
‘The level of ambition
involved can hardly be
overestimated. Despite the
obvious need, no agency, no
matter how well funded or
expertly staffed, had
attempted such a project.’
T
he evidence base for addiction treatment is enormous, hard to
encompass, and even harder to assess. Wouldn’t it be great if
we could somehow identify the major documents practitioners
should read, even if they read nothing else? Just such a
discussion took place in a sub-group of the Substance Misuse
Skills Consortium (www.skillsconsortium.org.uk), the sector-led partnership
that aims to develop the substance misuse treatment workforce in England.
I participated as editor of the Drug and Alcohol Findings Effectiveness Bank
site (http://findings.org.uk).
Findings
had already constructed a matrix for the consortium, which
mapped the evidence-base universe, though for a different purpose. Funded
via the National Treatment Agency for Substance Misuse (now absorbed in
Public Health England)
Findings
undertook to develop this framework into
matrices, presenting the most important documents and resources for
treatment practitioners and commissioners to understand the evidential
basis for their work and to implement its most important lessons.
The level of ambition involved can hardly be overestimated. Despite the
obvious need, no agency, no matter how well funded or expertly staffed, from
multi-million dollar US government institutions to the European Union’s drug
centre or the UN’s World Health Organization, had attempted such a project.
In Britain it could only be envisaged within a reasonable time frame and
limited resources because for the past 16 years
Drug and Alcohol Findings
had
been monitoring and collecting evaluation research, assessing the studies, and
selecting and analysing those of greatest relevance to the UK. Along the way,
seminal research had been identified and analysed in its own right (the Old
Gold series in
Findings
magazine – see http://bit.ly/19MCk6l) and as the
backdrop to understanding more recent work. Reviews were collected and read
to help understand the significance of each individual study and guidance
documents helped make sense of what they might mean for the UK.
This work had accumulated into the largest live drug and alcohol library in
Britain, holding 17,000 documents relevant to the ‘what works’ agenda. The
managing committee’s experience in collating and disseminating information