Days to treatment and early retention among patients in treatment for alcohol and drug disorders.

OBJECTIVES Drug and alcohol treatment programs often have long delays between assessment and treatment admission. The study examined the impact of days to treatment admission on the probability of completing four sessions of care within an addiction treatment program implementing improvements in their admission process. METHODS Mixed-effects logistic regression was used to test the effect of wait time on retention in care. RESULTS Findings demonstrate a strong decrement in the probability of completing four sessions of treatment with increasing time between the clinical assessment and first treatment session.