Contingency Management for Substance Abuse Treatment: A Guide to Implementing This Evidence-Based Practice

Isn’t it unethical to pay people to do what they should be doing anyway?
Won’t patients just sell the reinforcers and buy drugs?
Others didn’t get prizes for not using. Why should they?

The concerns surrounding Contingency Management (CM) are many and reflect how poorly understood and rarely utilized this evidence-based treatment model is in practice settings. Despite being identified as the most efficacious intervention for substance use disorders, a significant gap persists between research and practice, at the client’s expense. Nancy Petry, an experienced researcher and consultant for organizations such as the National Institute of Health, has begun to fill this gap by authoring the first clinician-oriented text that focuses on CM protocol development and implementation. In this well-organized and clear book she provides a foundation for understanding CM and details how to design and implement a program that can work for any clinician, whether he or she works for a well-funded program or not. She also addresses realistic concerns such as:

• How to describe CM to eligible and ineligible patients
• How to calculate the costs of CM interventions
• How to solicit donations and raise funds to support CM interventions
• How to stock a prize cabinet and keep track of prizes

Over 50 charts, worksheets, and tables are provided to help the clinician pinpoint exactly which behaviors to target, brainstorm how to reinforce change, and develop a treatment plan that incorporates cost, length of treatment, and method for determining patient compliance. Included with the book are downloadable resources of editable logs, forms, tables, and worksheets for personal use. More than just filling a void, Dr. Petry provides all of the tools clinicians require to successfully apply a novel treatment in practice.

Nancy M. Petry, PhD, is Professor of Medicine in the Calhoun Cardiology Center at the University of Connecticut and serves as a consultant and advisor for the National Institutes of Health.