Reduction of psychopathology among individuals participating in non-treatment drug abuse residential studies.

The psychological repercussions in drug abusing individuals of their participation in non-treatment residential drug abuse research protocols have been uncertain. To study this, the average raw scores of the Symptom-Check List-90 Revised (SCL-90R) at the time of recruiting and discharge (40.2ˆ ± 5.6 days later) was studied at the Addiction Research Center of the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA-ARC), in Baltimore, Maryland, in a sample of 233 drug abusers seeking no treatment. There was significant reduction in symptomatology (p < .01) between recruiting and discharge for Obsessive-Compulsive, Interpersonal Sensitivity, Depression, Phobic Anxiety, Paranoid Ideation, Psychoticism, and Total Scores. These findings suggest that participation of drug abusers in nontreatment residential studies is safe and may improve their psychological status, which may be a therapeutic outcome of disengaging individuals from their drug environment and offering a safe and structured milieu.