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What are rehabilitation clinics?

Rehabilitation clinics are institutions that provide care and support to enable a return to a healthy life after a period of illness. In this context we are concerned with alcohol rehabilitation clinics which provide care and support for people suffering from alcoholism. Rehabilitation clinics will usually provide both the medical and psychological care needed to treat alcoholism. As such, in the UK, rehabilitation clinics will usually provide both alcohol detox and on-going psychological rehabilitation, both of which are commonly necessary to achieve recovery from alcoholism.

As far as the psychological element of treatment is concerned, there are various types of rehabilitation clinic - twelve step rehabilitation clinics, therapeutic community rehabilitation clinics, religious based rehabilitation clinics, and medical model rehabilitation clinics. The commonest form of rehabilitation clinics in the UK is twelve step.
All rehabilitation clinics tend to share a number of key features. Residents must be drug and alcohol free (apart from tobacco); rehabilitation clinics provide a structured programme of psychological, educational and social therapy, which aims at preparing the alcoholic or addict to manage better an alcohol free life back in society; rehabilitation clinic programme lengths vary between 1 and 9 months. Many rehabilitation clinics will provide detox in-house when this is necessary, in advance of commencement of the rehabilitation programme.

Rehabilitation clinics versus community (home) treatment

Admission to a rehabilitation clinic for a period of residential treatment, appears to present a higher probability of successful outcome than does community based treatment. A 1996 follow-up study, conducted as part of the National Treatment Outcome Research Study (NTORS) indicated the following (Gossop M et al, 1999): When compared to community services, residential rehabilitation clinics are likely to achieve comparable outcomes, but treat clients with more severe patterns of addiction, thus indicating greater effectiveness of residential rehabilitation clinics as compared to community rehabilitation.

Duration of rehabilitation clinic stay

Compared to early leavers from rehabilitation clinics those retained at least 28 days in short rehabilitation clinic programmes, and 90 days in longer rehabilitation clinic programmes are probably four times less likely to relapse than others, as indicated by some research studies. The issue of retention in rehabilitation clinics is central to effectiveness, and can be seen as a function of how the rehabilitation clinic relates to its clients, rather than the reverse. Rehabilitation clinics which actively engage with clients, provide supportive environments and well structured programmes, which are clear about their policies and their therapies, and which tailor their activities to individual needs produce better outcomes.

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