Schizophrenia Bulletin Advance Access originally published online on July 18, 2006
Schizophrenia Bulletin 2006 32(4):655-665; doi:10.1093/schbul/sbl009
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Enhancing Validity in Co-occurring Disorders Treatment Research
2 Dartmouth Psychiatric Research Center, 2 Whipple Place, Suite 202, Lebanon, NH 03766
3 Division of Health Services Research, Mt Sinai School of Medicine
4 Department of Psychiatry, Dartmouth Medical School
1To whom correspondence should be addressed; tel: 603-448-0263, fax: 603-448-3976, e-mail: gregory.mchugo{at}dartmouth.edu.
Despite the high prevalence of co-occurring mental health and substance-use disorders, there has been a relative lack of treatment research with this population, and the existing research often has limited validity. This article explores some of the barriers to the conduct of research on promising interventions for substance-abuse treatment for people with co-occurring disorders, using the concepts of external and ecological validity to make recommendations for future investigation. The central recommendation is to move rapidly from efficacy studies to more credible and valid effectiveness studies, in order to facilitate the adoption of evidence-based interventions in routine practice settings.
Keywords: inferential validity / external validity / ecological validity / co-occurring disorders / dual diagnosis / effectiveness research