Accepted for/Published in: JMIR Mental Health
Date Submitted: Mar 7, 2025
Open Peer Review Period: Jun 2, 2025 - Jul 28, 2025
Date Accepted: Jun 7, 2025
(closed for review but you can still tweet)
Warning: This is an author submission that is not peer-reviewed or edited. Preprints - unless they show as "accepted" - should not be relied on to guide clinical practice or health-related behavior and should not be reported in news media as established information.
Digital Contingency Management for Substance Use Disorder Treatment: A 12-Month Controlled Trial
ABSTRACT
Background:
Background:
Though contingency management shows its efficacy in substance use disorder treatment, digital contingency management needs more evidence in treating substance use.
Objective:
This study aims to evaluate the effectiveness of digital contingency management in treating substance use disorder by examining two key outcome variables: abstinence and appointment attendance.
Methods:
A 12-month controlled trial was conducted by enrolling patients into two groups based on the time sequence of program enrollment: one group consenting to participate in the digital contingency management and the other one with no contingency management. Propensity score matching was conducted to match groups on covariates. After matching, t-tests were conducted to examine the difference between groups on urine abstinence and appointment attendance rates.
Results:
Two cohorts of propensity-matched patients (66 interventions and 59 controls) were analyzed. Abstinence was significantly higher in the digital contingency management group (mean = 0.92, 95% CI: 0.88–0.96) than in the treatment-as-usual group (mean = 0.85, 95% CI: 0.79–0.90; p = 0.01). Appointment attendance also demonstrated significant differences between the groups, with the Digital contingency management group achieving a mean rate of 0.69 (95% CI: 0.65–0.74) compared to 0.50 (95% CI: 0.45–0.55) in the TAU group (p < 0.001). This notable increase highlights the role of Digital contingency management in fostering engagement with care, an essential factor for successful treatment outcomes.
Conclusions:
The results suggest that digital contingency management can be an effective treatment modality for substance use disorder. Clinical Trial: NA
Citation
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Copyright
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