Project MATCH

This article is about the alcoholic treatment project. For other projects named "Match", see Match (disambiguation).

Project MATCH began in 1989 in the United States and was sponsored by the National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism (NIAAA). MATCH is an initialism for Matching Alcoholism Treatments to Client Heterogeneity. The project was an 8-year, multi site, $27-million investigation that studied which types of alcoholics respond best to which forms of treatment. MATCH studied whether treatment should be uniform or assigned to patients based on specific needs and characteristics. The programs were administered by psychotherapists and, although twelve-step methods were incorporated into the therapy, actual Alcoholics Anonymous meetings were not included.[1][2] Three types of treatment were investigated:

  • Cognitive Behavioral Coping Skills Therapy, focusing on correcting poor self-esteem and distorted, negative, and self-defeating thinking.[3][4]
  • Motivational Enhancement Therapy, which helps clients to become aware of and build on personal strengths that can help improve readiness to quit.[5]
  • Twelve-Step Facilitation Therapy administered as an independent treatment designed to familiarize patients with the AA philosophy and to encourage participation.[1]

The study concluded that patient-treatment matching is not necessary for alcoholism treatment because the three techniques are equal in effectiveness.

  1. ^ a b NIAAA Reports Project MATCH Main Findings Archived 2007-10-29 at the Wayback Machine, Press release from National Institute on Alcohol Abuse and Alcoholism, Dec 1996. Retrieved 2007-05-25.
  2. ^ "Matching Alcoholism Treatments to Client Heterogeneity: Project MATCH posttreatment drinking outcomes". Journal of Studies on Alcohol. 58 (1): 7–29. 1997. doi:10.15288/jsa.1997.58.7. PMID 8979210. Archived from the original on 2013-01-27.
  3. ^ Treatment of alcoholism: New results. Harvard Mental Health Letter, Aug2006, Vol. 23 Issue 2, p6-7, 2p
  4. ^ Adler, Jerry; Underwood, Anne; Kelley, Raina; Springen, Karen; Breslau, Karen. "Rehab Reality Check[dead link]" Newsweek, 2/19/2007, Vol. 149 Issue 8, p44-46, 3p, 4c
  5. ^ Bower, Bruce (1997). "Alcoholics synonymous: Heavy drinkers of all stripes may get comparable help from a variety of therapies". Science News. 151 (4): 62–3. doi:10.2307/3980635. JSTOR 3980635.