Farrah Sharpe
Southern New Hampshire University
Alternative Medicine, Mental Health, and Substance Abuse: Ethics Review
Introduction
Substance abuse programs as of 2014 throughout America are a plethora of unregulated mental health and drug treatment facilities which assist clients in detox, recovery, coping skills, therapy, inpatient, outpatient, and peer support. These services may provide some help to the client but are missing an essential ingredient. Studies prove that current practices are not enough to handle the addiction crisis that plagues many. Currently the treatment programs throughout the United States consist of individual and group counseling, inpatient and residential treatment, intensive outpatient treatment, partial hospital programs, case or care management, medication, recovery support services, and the 12-Step fellowship program. (SAMHSA, 2000) The National Center on Addiction and Substance Abuse at Columbia University released a five-year national study revealing that there are no accepted national standards for providers of addiction treatment. Susan Foster, CASA Columbia’s Vice President and Director of Policy Research and Analysis, continues further and reports, “There simply is no other disease where appropriate medical treatment is not provided by the health care system and where patients instead must turn to a broad range of practitioners largely exempt from medical standards.”
The leaders of The Office of Applied Studies, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration (SAMHSA), and the U.S. Department of Health and Human Service which are the primary companies that plan and direct the N-SSATS are authorized to intentionally create effective programs which create positive, long-lasting results for its clients. New information on alternative healing studies shows that the time has come for an update in the current paradigm of mental health and substance abuse in the United States. By creating a program that included the whole person and every part of their lives; mental, physical, emotional, spiritual, and psychological programs such as those listed above will have a higher success rate effecting better wellness and personal care strategies for participants of substance abuse programs nationwide.
Investigators
The primary investigator for this study is FMS Research Group, which is funded by the American Association for Consumer and Earth Relations (AACER). AACER enforces ethical guidelines regarding humans and the earth and conducts research in the fields of psychology, wellness, leadership, mind, body, mind, spirit, meditation, mindfulness, product consumption, corporations, sustainability, stress management, communication, and food and nutrition. The details of the study will be managed and supervised by researcher Farrah Sharpe and a team of dedicated investigators from the staff at the FMS Research Group.
Nature of Study
“Neglect by the medical profession has resulted in a separate and unrelated system of care that struggles to treat the disease without the resources or knowledge base to keep pace with science and medicine.” (Susan Foster, 2012) The objective of this study is to assist SAMHSA and State and local governments by assessing the nature and extent of services provided by mental health and drug abuse treatment facilities throughout the United States and to implement and study for 6 months the effect of integrating traditional healing methods with non-traditional methods such as meditation, yoga, and various forms of alternative healing modalities into their mental health and substance abuse programs.
This study seeks to analyze general treatment services utilized in the United States to treat mental health and substance abuse patients. The goal is to pair the most successful trends currently used in mental health and substance abuse with alternative healing modalities and conduct comparative analyses, test for its effectiveness in the lives of the participant and in the long term to create an adaptable universal treatment plan to be used with clients in mental health and substance abuse treatment facilities throughout the United States. This study seeks to verify the mechanism for quantifying the dynamic character and composition of the U.S. addiction treatment program delivery system and offer helpful upgrades to the health and wellness aspect of mental health and substance abuse treatment programs across the nation.
Participants
Participants of this study should meet the following criteria. Participants of this study are required by law to be over the age of 18, and able to devote six months of treatment and up to 3 years of post-study observation. Participants must be diagnosed with at least one mental illness of any kind by a physician and must be a drug addict of any kind and actively seeking help for addiction. Participants must be interested in their wellbeing, creating positive change in their lives, and in a place where they are ready contribute to society in a meaningful way. The individual participants should also have a desire to improve their overall health and wellness. Preference is given to client’s presently receiving services at one or more of the 13,749 specialized drug treatment facilities throughout the United States that reports to N-SSATS.
Participants will be asked to integrate traditional substance abuse health and wellness techniques, exercises and activities (listed above) with non-traditional health and wellness techniques such as meditation, yoga, and various forms of alternative healing modalities into their substance abuse programs. The risks associated with this study are minimal as the focus is on transformation, self-evolution, and sustainability. Their progress will be monitored through monthly individual sessions, bi weekly group sessions and weekly online meetings with an assigned therapist or through the completion of an online training component.
Assessments will be made by personal progress, goal setting, achievement, utilizing the Healthy Lifestyle Assessment and The Five Factor Wellness Inventory (5F-Wel). No deception will be used participants will be up to date on all information. The risks involved include the participant’s reaction to change and their reluctance or willingness to do so. Other risks include emotional traumas from childhood that are likely to resurface during treatment. In the process of self-discovery, the client will develop new behaviors leading to long lasting change. The debriefing will begin at the time of contract signing. The participants of this study will experience no physical, psychological, legal or social harm by taking part in this research.
Research Participants
The general characteristics of research participants should be men and women ages 18 – 45 and already a participant in a registered mental health and substance abuse facility. The projected number of participants for each facility is 20 participants from each of the 13,749 specialized drug treatment facilities throughout the United States. All facilities are willing participants in the study. The participants should be in good physical health able to perform light exercise. Participants who are in fair mental condition are also welcome to volunteer for the study as they can also participate with the inclusion of their personal psychologist or psychotherapist in or out of the institution.
Confidentiality
Protecting participants from exploitation is an important consideration in maintaining the validity of this study. With this in mind, the confidentiality of this study will be maintained through a process called Community-Minded Family Therapy developed by Sally St. George and Dan Wulff. The design of Community-Minded Family Therapy allows for the therapist to listen to the particular dilemmas the client describes about his life and seeks to link the client with neighborhood resource and people that can assist the client in achieving his life goals.
Confidentiality, as constructed and practiced, is an example of one of those ideas and practices derived from the grand narrative of individualism and independence. Therefore, when we work from a community-minded family therapy perspective we are (1) identifying grand narratives that influence us all, (2) organizing our conversations to include talk about the ways that grand narratives constrain or slow our thinking, and then (3) figuring out how we can take steps towards better managing the taken-for-granted influences in our communities that limit or hinder families. Confidentiality of the data will be maintained through (St George and Wulff, 2006)
The therapist will also listen to the client seeking to find the unseen, but persuasive pattern of thoughts, philosophies and favored practices that seem to guide the participant’s life in making life decisions.
Debriefing
Debriefing to attain qualitative feedback will occur in 4 critical phases: The first is the cognitive interviewing process which will precede the volunteer survey. Feedback will be collected, throughout survey development, survey administration and upon survey completion. Debriefings conducted throughout study development will offer valuable information on issues that are problematic for either interviewer or respondent. Careful attention to detail in this area will allow for improving the survey instruments, survey protocols, and/or interviewer training materials. Debriefing will occur during the primary phase of interviewing; to allow for fine-tuning of processes, answer categories, or interpretation of data. (Kelly and Lavrakas, 2008). One-on-one interviews will also be utilized for respondent debriefings as a variation of cognitive interviewing techniques utilized in other modules of the study.
References
Foster, Susan National center on addiction and substance abuse at Columbia University, releases addiction treatment study. (2012). Health & Beauty Close – Up, Retrieved from http://ezproxy.snhu.edu/login?url=http://search.proquest.com/docview/1022511784?accountid=3783
Kelly, J., & Lavrakas, P. (2008). Debriefing. In Paul J. Lavrakas (Ed.), Encyclopedia of Survey Research Methods. (pp. 182-183). Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage Publications, Inc. doi: http://dx.doi.org/10.4135/9781412963947.n125
Sally St. George and Dan Wulff (2006). A Postmodern Approach to Teaching Family Therapy as Community Practice. Journal of Systemic Therapies: Vol. 25, No. 4, pp. 73-83.
SAMHSA. (2000, January 1). Treatments for Substance Use Disorders. Retrieved December 13, 2014, from http://www.samhsa.gov/treatment/substance-use-disorders
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