Research and practice together: The NIDA Clinical Trials Network.

The National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN), funded by the U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse, is a nationwide collaboration of 17 addiction research centers and 152 community treatment programs. Treatments found to be effective in prior research are tested in multisite clinical trials, with the regular staff and patients of ongoing addiction treatment programs, to determine how well they work when delivered in the context of community practice. In five years of operation, the CTN has launched 21 multisite studies, enrolling nearly 7,000 patients in randomized clinical trials, and the first findings are beginning to be published. This article describes the CTN and its 21 current protocols, plus five more planned for implementation in 2006. It is a unique collaboration of research scientist and community practitioners, designed to test evidence-based treatments in real-life programs, and then facilitate their broader dissemination into practice.