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Dual diagnosis makes dealing with drug or alcohol addiction and mental illness doubly difficult because they occur together. Individuals who have a dual diagnosis must often figure out how to work through both of the conditions in order for either of them to improve. This is because substance addiction tends to aggravate the mental illness, and vice versa. Special treatment programs are needed for these people to learn how to live a productive and healthy lifestyle. They require expert counseling and support for each of the conditions at the same time.

Researchers at the University of California in San Francisco studied issues surrounding the current state of mental health and addiction treatment programs available for dual diagnosis patients. The 226 participants in the study were patients in a rehab facility who also had a mental illness and patients in a psychiatric treatment program who dealt with drug or alcohol addiction.

The terms of the care they were receiving for the two primary types of treatment were as similar as possible. The group primarily receiving psychiatric care and the group getting addiction help were both in residential treatment centers at the acute crisis level.

Researchers studied the groups with dual diagnosis for differences in the two conditions they were dealing with. The only real difference found was that the mental health patients were a little more likely to have a form of schizophrenia. Otherwise, they had the same rates of mental illness and the same severity of drug and alcohol addiction.

This shows that the United States needs to provide more integrated care for dual diagnosis patients. They should be able to receive expert services for both mental illness and drug and alcohol addiction at the same, in the same treatment facility. Doing so would make it easier to maintain addiction recovery and successfully deal with the mental illness at the same time.

Posted in: Alcohol Addiction, Crystal Meth Addiction, Drug Addiction, Heroin Addiction, Prescription Drug Addiction, Substance Addiction