Study Examines Cost-Effectiveness of Using Prizes to Treat Stimulant Abusers

Stimulant abusers rewarded with prizes for submitting drug-free urine samples have longer periods of continuous abstinence—but cost more to treat—than those in traditional therapy, researchers at Yale School of Medicine report in the September issue of Drug and Alcohol Dependence. 

Led by Todd A. Olmstead, associate research scientist in the Department of Epidemiology and Public Health at Yale School of Medicine (EPH), the research team analyzed a clinical trial, conducted within the National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Clinical Trials Network, in which 415 stimulant abusers were randomly assigned to traditional therapy or traditional therapy plus prize-based incentives.

Compared to traditional therapy alone, the researchers found that using prize-based incentives to lengthen the duration of continuous abstinence by one week costs an additional $258 per patient.

“Many studies have already shown that prize-based incentives are very effective at improving drug use outcomes among a wide range of substance abusing populations,” said Olmstead.  “However, one of the reasons we haven’t seen greater adoption of these tools in practice is that not much was known about their implementation costs.”

“We did the study to shed light on the costs and cost-effectiveness of this potentially important tool. If policy makers believe that $258 is a good price to pay to extend the longest duration of continuous stimulant-abstinence by one week, then we should expect to see more clinics adopting these types of tools,” Olmstead added. “The costs of prize-based incentives appear to be lower than those required to implement voucher-based incentive procedures.”

Other authors on the NIDA-funded study include Jody L. Sindelar, professor of public health at EPH, and Nancy M. Petry, professor of psychiatry at the University of Connecticut Health Center and the designer of the prize-based incentive technique.

Citation: Drug and Alcohol Dependence, Online Edition (September 12, 2006)