Study at Research Institute on Addictions Addresses Best Methods for Treatment of Alcoholism

BUFFALO, N.Y. -- Some individuals with alcoholism seem to benefit more from residential care in their recovery process. Others do very well with outpatient office visits with a counselor or therapist. Definitive knowledge for predicting who does best in each of these two very different treatment settings, however, has eluded treatment providers.

Researchers at the University at Buffalo have received a $2.3 million grant from the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism to study how and why different levels of care work for different people with alcohol problems.

Members of a research team led by Robert G. Rychtarik, Ph.D., a senior research scientist in UB's Research Institute on Addictions (RIA) and UB research associate professor of psychology and psychiatry, will build on their prior clinical research on optimum treatment settings for alcoholics by extending it into real-world community treatment settings.

The study is being conducted in collaboration with the Erie County Medical Center's (ECMC) Division of Chemical Dependency, Downtown Outpatient Clinic and Inpatient Rehabilitation Programs. Robert B. Whitney, M.D., UB clinical assistant professor of family medicine and psychiatry, and clinical director of ECMC's Division of Chemical Dependency, is a co-investigator on the project. Other co-investigators include RIA research scientist Neil B. McGillicuddy, Ph.D., and Gerard J. Connors, Ph.D., director of RIA and UB professor of psychology.

"This study should offer alcoholism-treatment providers insight into the most efficient and effective client-placement criteria," according to Rychtarik. "The results could have implications for level-of-care decisions made by treatment providers, clinical-care guidelines established by policymakers and the overall provision of more cost-effective alcoholism treatment."

The Research Institute on Addictions, a national leader in the study of addictions, has been in existence since 1970 and a research center of the University at Buffalo since 1999.