Comparing the Effects of Methadone Detoxification ans Methadone Maintainance Treatment on the Symptoms of Anxiety And Depression In Drug Addicts

The purpose of the present study was to assess the effects of the drug treatment programs, Methadone Maintenance Therapy (MMT) and Methadone Detoxification (MD), las independent variables on Depression and Anxiety symptoms las deoendent variables in drug dependent individuals. To do so, the General Health Questionnaire (GHQ) was administered to 100 individuals seeking the aforementioned drug treatment programs (50 people per group) at three different time intervals; at the beginning of the treatment, 45 and 90 days afterwards. Repeated measure analysis of variance revealed that, in MMT program, the symptoms of depression was significantly reduced after 45 days and after 90 days this effect was even more robust. Similar results were obtained with regard to anxiety symptoms meaning that in both time intervals anxiety symptoms were significantly diminished. With regards to MD program, depression and anxiety symptoms were also reduced at both time intervals; i.e, at the end of the 90-day program there were a significant reduction of depression and anxiety symptoms. The present results showed that the time factors (45 and 90 days period) were determining factors in the outcome of the program; however, the interaction of the time, group (MMT or MD) and symptoms showed that the factor of group, alone, had no significant effect on the symptoms.