Continuing Care Following Drug Abuse Treatment: Linkage With Primary Care

This is a longitudinal two-arm quasi-experimental 3-month alternating off/on design over a 30 month period in which, after a random start, the Linkage condition alternately is added to Usual Care in the Chemical Dependency (CD) clinic and then removed. We compare Usual Care to Usual Care plus Linkage. Follow-up interviews will be conducted at 6, 12 and 24 months. The Linkage intervention includes Usual Care plus 1) sessions on activation regarding overall health behaviors and on selecting a Primary Care physician and communicating with him/her, and 2) a linkage phone call (and/or a facilitated email) with the patient, clinician, and Primary Care physician. The intervention aims to place drug abuse problems in the context of overall health and health care and to activate patients to increase involvement in their own health care.