Methadone maintenance treatment and its conclusion

This research was conducted in a Centre for Drug Addiction (Ser-T) located in a small town of an Italian province. The research aims to understand what elements help in the rehabilitation treatment conclusion in a Service based on methadone maintenance treatment. To this end, interviews were conducted with both users who had completed the treatment and with others still in treatment. The interviews (n=22), which were recorded and transcribed, have undergone both text analysis, using the TLab software (cluster analysis using the K-means method and correspondence analysis), as well as content analysis. The text analysis highlighted the presence of four different cultures regarding the relationship between the users and the Service. All the cultures express the emotional bound between users and the Ser-T. The elements favouring this strong bound are the welcome they received, the helpfulness, and the professionals availability both in times of crisis as well as in moments of discomfort. The helpfulness of the Ser-T appears constant over time, and the logic of the welcome received does not seem to vary depending on the single user’s specific treatment process. In fact, users who concluded the treatment did not show a different culture from those who did not. The content analysis, on the other hand, clearly highlights how the treatment conclusion is attributed to critical events taking place outside the Service, which favoured the user’s calling into question of his/her Ser-T dependency relationship. Though this scenario may have only local value, it is possible to hypothesize that the culture of methadone maintenance treatment may tend to overshadow the possibility to plan the treatment conclusion, not favouring Ser-T management of those who wish to get out of the Service. If further research were to confirm this hypothesis, this would be a useful information for those who work at the Ser-T.