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Essay On Agonist Maintenance Treatment

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Agonist maintenance treatment Agonist maintenance treatment refers to the use of medication to treat opioid dependence. Two most common medications used to treat opioid dependence are methadone and buprenorphine (Jackson, Mandell, Johnson, Chatterjee, & Vanness, 2015), which are the same medications used to help individuals detox from opioids. Much research has been conducted around agonist maintenance medications and the evidence indicates that this form of treatment reduces relapses (Pecoraro, Ma & Woody, 2012; Saxon, Yih-Ing, Woody, & Ling, 2013) and is also a cost effective treatment (Jackson, Mandell, Johnson, Chatterjee, & Vanness, 2015). Agonist maintenance medications are shown to reduce cravings in clients and reduce the risks associated with opioid use (Byrne, Lander, & Ferris, 2009); however other researchers hypothesize that this treatment alone does not address any underlying issues such as trauma or mental health issues that may contribute to opioid use (Brown, Harris, & Fallot, 2013). Psycho-social therapies Much of the research on opioid dependence has been…show more content…
These group models can be broken down into specific groups, such as early recovery, relapse prevention, 12-step psychoeducational, to name a few (SAMHSA, 2005). However, the search for literature on the efficacy of treatment groups for substance abuse disorders resulted in limited results. In one study by Gamble and Lawrence (2016), the researchers examined the current state of the 12-Step program and its long-term efficacy. They discovered in their literature review that studies surrounding 12-Step and other forms of treatment are scattered and not generalized for a diverse population (Gamble & Lawrence,
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