The impact of outpatient drug services on abstinence among pregnant and parenting women

Although there is an increasing number of outpatient drug programs, there remains little consensus on which service components are most effective for pregnant and parenting women seeking treatment. In this investigation, we studied 48 women who remained in treatment for 5 consecutive months to; (1) examine differences between clients who maintained 30 to 90 days of abstinence and those who did not, and (2) test the association between services and abstinence. Although we found no demographic differences between abstinent and nonabstinent women, we did find that significantly more abstinent women received family therapy services compared to nonabstinent women as they remained in treatment. Furthermore, we found that clients who were abstinent tended to receive more services overall than those who were not. Providers need to consider their population when deciding on which service components will be included; and family therapy is one service component that should be available to pregnant and parenting women.