COVID 19 and the Opioid Epidemic: An Analysis of Clinical Outcomes During COVID 19.

Background And Objectives: Here we aimed to characterize clinical outcomes in those receiving treatment at a Veterans Health Administration (VHA) methadone maintenance treatment program (MMT) during the COVID 19 pandemic in which SAMSHA regulations for MMTs were changed to provide a greater number of methadone allotments and decreased clinic-visit frequency.

Methods: We report results of a single-site, pre-post cohort study of urine drug screen data 3 months before and after an increase in allotments of take-home medication from the methadone clinic. One hundred twenty-nine patients met inclusion criteria for this study.

What could the program have done differently? A qualitative examination of reasons for leaving outpatient treatment.

Attrition from treatment for substance abuse disorders is a persistent challenge that severely limits the effectiveness of services. Although a large body of research has sought to identify predictors of retention, the perspective of clients of services is rarely examined. This exploratory qualitative study presents clients' stated reasons for leaving outpatient treatment (n = 135, 54% of the sample of 250) and their views of what could have been done differently to keep them engaged in services.

An exploration of the effect of on-site 12-step meetings on post-treatment outcomes among polysubstance-dependent outpatient clients.

Rates of return to active substance use after addiction treatment tend to be high; participation in 12-step fellowships (e.g., Alcoholics Anonymous) reduces relapse rates but many clients do not attend or attend for a short period only.

Characteristics of a high-power broad-area laser operating in a passively stabilized external cavity.

We narrowed the spectral bandwidth of our 2 W broad-area laser to 8+/-1 GHz with a coarse tunability of 12 nm centered near 790 nm in an external cavity. Our passively stabilized external cavity was designed for use with high-power semiconductor lasers. The cavity length and mount are modular with a fixed pivot point so that the optical elements can be changed to access a broad frequency spectrum and enable multiple applications.