Use of contingency management incentives to improve completion of hepatitis B vaccination in people undergoing treatment for heroin dependence: a cluster randomised trial

Background: Poor adherence to treatment diminishes its individual and public health benefit. Financial incentives, provided on the condition of treatment attendance, could address this problem. Injecting drug users are a high-risk group for hepatitis B virus (HBV) infection and transmission, but adherence to vaccination programmes is poor. We aimed to assess whether contingency management delivered in routine clinical practice increased the completion of HBV vaccination in individuals receiving opioid substitution therapy. Methods: In our cluster randomised controlled trial, we enrolled participants at 12 National Health Service drug treatment services in the UK that provided opioid substitution therapy and nurse-led HBV vaccination with a super-accelerated schedule (vaccination days 0, 7, and 21). Clusters were randomly allocated 1:1:1 to provide vaccination without incentive (treatment as usual), with fixed value contingency management (three £10 vouchers), or escalating value contingency management (£5, £10, and £15 vouchers). Both contingency management schedules rewarded on-time attendance at appointments. The primary outcome was completion of clinically appropriate HBV vaccination within 28 days. We also did sensitivity analyses that examined vaccination completion with full adherence to appointment times and within a 3 month window. The trial is registered with Current Controlled Trials, number ISRCTN72794493. Findings: Between March 16, 2011, and April 26, 2012, we enrolled 210 eligible participants. Compared with six (9%) of 67 participants treated as usual, 35 (45%) of 78 participants in the fixed value contingency management group met the primary outcome measure (odds ratio 12·1, 95% CI 3·7–39·9; p<0·0001), as did 32 (49%) of 65 participants in the escalating value contingency management group (14·0, 4·2–46·2; p<0·0001). These differences remained significant with sensitivity analyses. Interpretation: Modest financial incentives delivered in routine clinical practice significantly improve adherence to, and completion of, HBV vaccination programmes in patients receiving opioid substitution therapy. Achievement of this improvement in routine clinical practice should now prompt actual implementation. Drug treatment providers should employ contingency management to promote adherence to vaccination programmes. The effectiveness of routine use of contingency management to achieve long-term behaviour change remains unknown

The relationship between cognitive inhibition and psychotic symptoms.

Cognitive models of schizophrenia have highlighted deficits of inhibitory attentional processes as central to the disorder. This has been investigated using "negative priming" (S. P. Tipper, 1985), with schizophrenia patients showing a reduction of negative priming in a number of studies. This study attempted to replicate these findings, but studied psychotic symptoms rather than the broad diagnostic category of schizophrenia. Psychotic individuals exhibiting positive symptoms were compared with asymptomatic psychiatric patients and with a normal control group. As predicted, the symptomatic group failed to show the usual negative priming effect, which was present in the asymptomatic and normal groups. A modest but significant correlation was found between negative priming and delusions. Neither diagnosis, nor affective or negative symptoms, nor chronicity, nor medication, was related to negative priming. These data replicate previous findings that positive symptoms are related to a reduction in cognitive inhibition, although considerable variability was observed among the psychotic patients

The cost-effectiveness of financial incentives to achieve heroin abstinence in individuals with heroin use disorder starting new treatment episodes: A cluster randomised controlled trial-based economic evaluation

OBJECTIVES: Cost-effectiveness analysis of two 12-week contingency management (CM) schedules targeting heroin-abstinence or attendance at weekly keyworker appointments for opioid agonist treatment (OAT), compared to treatment as usual (TAU). METHODS: Cost-effectiveness analysis was conducted alongside a cluster randomised trial of 552 patients from 34 clusters (drug treatment clinics) randomly allocated 1:1:1 to OAT plus weekly keyworker appointments with either: i) CM targeted at heroin-abstinence (CM Abstinence); ii) CM targeted at on-time attendance at weekly appointments (CM Attendance); or, iii) no CM (TAU). The primary cost-effectiveness analysis at 24 weeks post-randomisation took a societal cost perspective with effects measured in heroin-negative urine samples. RESULTS: At 24-weeks, mean differences in weekly heroin-negative urine results compared with TAU were 0.252 (95%CI -0.397 to 0.901) for CM Abstinence and 0.089 (95%CI -0.223 to 0.402) for CM Attendance. Mean differences in costs were £2562 (95%CI £32 to £5092) for CM Abstinence and £317 (95%CI -£882 to £1518) for CM Attendance. Incremental cost-effectiveness ratios were £10,167 per additional heroin-free urine for CM Abstinence and £3,562 for CM Attendance with low probabilities of cost-effectiveness of 3.5% and 36%, respectively. Results were sensitive to timing of follow-up for CM Attendance, which dominated TAU (better outcomes, lower costs) at 12-weeks, with an 88.4% probability of being cost-effective. Probability of cost-effectiveness remained low for CM Abstinence (8.6%). CONCLUSIONS: Financial incentives targeted toward heroin-abstinence and treatment-attendance were not cost-effective over the 24-week follow-up. However, CM Attendance was cost-effective over the treatment period (12-weeks), when participants were receiving keyworker appointments and incentives