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VIDEO: Using behavioral therapy to improve substance use disorder medication adherence

ATLANTA — In this video, Edward Nunes, MD, a professor of psychiatry at Columbia University Medical Center and New York Presbyterian Hospital, explains how to use behavioral therapies to improve adherence to medications for substance use disorders.

“Over 50% of patients who qualify for these medications and start on them will discontinue the medication within a few months of starting them,” Nunes told Healio.com/Psychiatry. “Often that sets many of them back to square one, with risk for all the consequences of addiction as well as overdose.”

Nunes discusses three behavioral therapies, including contingency management, involving a significant other to join treatment and motivational interviewing, to improve substance use disorder medication adherence.