In-Person versus Telehealth Substance Use Treatment: An Ecologically Valid Comparison (Preprint)

Abstract

The COVID-19 pandemic has profoundly transformed substance use disorder treatment in the United States. Use of telehealth services rapidly increased as a means to mitigate viral transmission of the disease. Emergency federal and state policies removed geographic and site-of-service restrictions and increased the number of telehealth services covered by insurers. Although telehealth has the ability to increase access to care, little is known about how the long-term treatment effectiveness of substance use disorder interventions delivered through digital technologies compares to in-person treatment. Even less is known about how patient, clinician, and clinical characteristics may predict treatment outcomes.

To analyze treatment-related outcomes and explore patient predictors of treatment efficacy across traditional and telehealth settings in a sample of participants (n=3,642) who received intensive outpatient (IOP) substance use treatment from January 2020 to March 2021.

The VIOP study is a prospective longitudinal cohort design that follows adult (18+ years) patients who discharged from intensive outpatient programmatic care for alcohol and substance use-related treatment at Hazelden Betty Ford Foundation (HBFF) between January 2020 and March 2021. Data were collected at six time periods: baseline (at admission), 1-, 3-, 6-, 9-, and 12-months post-discharge from both in-person and virtual IOP services through phone- and web-based administered surveys to assess recent substance use and general functioning across several domains.

Initial baseline descriptives were conducted on patient outcome measurements. Follow-up data collection is ongoing and expected to be completed in March of 2022.

The findings aim to contribute to deepening our fields’ understanding of substance use disorder treatment efficacy across traditional and telehealth settings and its associated correlates and predictors of patient-centered outcomes. Results from this study will inform the effective development of data-driven benchmarks and protocols for routine outcomes data practices in these treatment settings.

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