Am J Psychiatry 1981; 138:1497-1500
Copyright © 1981 by American Psychiatric Association
Efficacy of urine monitoring in methadone maintenance
B Havassy and S Hall
To test the efficacy of screening urine specimens of methadone maintenance
clients as a deterrent to illicit drug use, the authors randomly assigned
431 subjects to a monitored or an unmonitored group for 1 year. Monitored
subjects continued to provide urine specimens once a week; unmonitored
subjects did not. All other aspects of treatment remained the same. At 4
and 8 months after the study began, surprise urine collections were
conducted. There was no difference between the groups in the proportion of
drug-free specimens at either time.
