July 11, 2024
Dear Hossein,
As we have discussed, I am hoping we can collaborate on a paper on the integration of time-limited medication support and psycho/social/spiritual recovery support as practiced by Congress 60. I hope as part of that article that we could provide some quantitative data comparing Congress 60 member profile data with data from the U.S. treatment population. I have communicated with Elahe Sadeghi regarding data available on a large sample of Congress 60 members in 2023-2024. The information Elahe Sadeghi provided was very helpful and increases my optimism that the planned paper is possible. In the U.S., there is a large data system called TEDS that provides information on all admission to addiction treatment in the U.S. I have recruited two of my colleagues from Chestnut Health Systems, Drs. Casey Sarapas and Candace Mouton, who have experience working with the TEDS data base to help with the potential analysis comparing the Congress 60 and U.S. data. There is no funding for this effort but they have graciously volunteered their time to assist us. It appears that the two data sets regarding treatment participant profile have numerous elements in common such as: primary drug choice, age, referral source, prior treatment, age of first use, duration of use, method of drug administration, marital status, employment status, gender, and race/ethnicity. This comparison alone would make a fascinating cross-cultural comparison.
It would also be good if we can compare some aspects of the treatment experience in Congress 60 and in the U.S. Please let me know which of the following data elements we could get for the Congress 60 sample?
--Time waiting to begin treatment
--% completing treatment
--Discharge status (treatment completion as planned, drop-out, disciplinary discharge by facility, transfer to other facility)
--Treatment duration
--summary results of 14-day, 6 month, and 1 year urine screen follow-up after medication cessation.
If you can let me know which of the above data would be available, I will prepare the research proposal and submit it to Chestnut Health Systems Institutional review Board for approval of the study.
Friends and Brothers Forever,
Bill