Disseminating contingency management to increase attendance in two community substance abuse treatment centers: Lessons learned.

The Texas Node of the National Drug Abuse Treatment Clinical Trials Network (CTN) collaborated with local community treatment programs (CTPs) to disseminate the evidence-based treatments of contingency management and motivational interviewing. Interventions were designed with the CTPs to approximate real-world conditions. Thus, pre-post designs were used, clients were not randomized to condition, all clients were eligible, and data routinely collected by the CTP was used to evaluate outcomes. In Study 1, two CTPs used contingency management to target adult outpatient group attendance, with one site using the fishbowl method (Petry, 2002) and the other using a bi-weekly raffle to variably reinforce attendance. Time series analyses indicated attendance increased significantly after CM started, with both sites demonstrating similar response patterns. In Study 2, three CTPs implemented motivational interviewing to decrease discharges against medical advice (AMA). The intervention was not effective in reducing discharges AMA. Lessons learned as to how to implement research-derived methodologies into a clinical treatment program are discussed.