The relationship of methadone maintenance patients' gender, age, methadone dose, and length of treatment to treatment outcome

This study explores the relationship of methadone maintenance treatment (MMT) patients' gender, age, methadone dose and length of treatment to their treatment outcome as reflected by patients' continuing use of heroin, cocaine, alcohol and benzodiazepine use while attending a MMT program. Information was obtained by chart review utilizing all charts of active patients who had been in treatment for at least 6 months. Lab results from the most recent 3 months of urine toxicology reports were used. Stepwise logistic regression analysis was used to study the relationship of patients' age, gender, methadone dose and length of treatment to in-treatment heroin, cocaine, alcohol and benzodiazepine use. Significantly, longer length of MMT predicted decreased heroin use. Younger age predicted cocaine use. Higher methadone dose predicted benzodiazepine use. When whites and non-white patient data was separated the results were the same as for the entire sample, except length of treatment dropped out as a significant predictor of heroin use. A second group of logistic regression analysis predicted use verses non-use of any of the four substances. There were no significant predictors for the full sample. For whites only, higher methadone dose significantly predicted drug use. Whites generally received higher methadone doses than non-whites in this sample.