Intervention

An intervention is a coordinated attempt by one, or often many, people to get someone to seek professional help with an addiction or some kind of traumatic event or crisis. The term drug intervention is most often used when the traumatic event involves addiction to drugs or other items. Intervention can also refer to the act of using a technique within a therapy session.

A Boston University Schools of Medicine and Public Health study, found a significant reduction in drug use by those who received intervention program.

Intervention programs have proven effective in instigating positive behavior changes in alcoholics. Introductory assessments of this process in drug abusers have been motivating enough to investigate it deeply as a therapeutic tool to enhance treatment.

Research work

The study was conducted on 1,175 men and women who had cocaine or heroin addiction, then divided into two groups, an intervention group and a control group.

During a twenty minute intervention, counselor, tried to establish relationship with participants by taking permission to argue drug use, explaining the horrifying effects of drug use, eliciting the difference between real and imaginative life.

An action plan was part of intervention also, a written list of treatment options, and a follow up telephone call 10 days later. Members of the control group received only the written list.

Conclusion

Six months after the intervention session, the researchers came to know:

• Among cocaine abused, 22.3 percent of the intervention people abstinent from the drug, compared with 16.9 percent of the control group.
• Among heroin abused, 40.2 percent of the intervention people were abstinent from the drug, as compare to 30.6 percent of the control group.