Integrated behavioral treatments for comorbid anxiety and substance use disorders: A model for understanding integrated treatment approaches and meta-analysis to evaluate their efficacy

Abstract

Introduction: Substance use disorders (SUD) and anxiety disorders are highly comorbid, and this comorbidity is associated with poor clinical outcomes. Emerging research in the last decade has shifted from addressing these problems separately to the development and evaluation of behavioral treatments that integrate care for anxiety disorders (or elevated symptoms of anxiety) and SUD.

Methods: An extensive literature search revealed a sufficient number of studies (K=11) to conduct a meta-analysis comparing the efficacy of integrated SUD/anxiety disorder behavioral treatment to SUD treatment alone on substance use and anxiety symptom outcomes. Randomized clinical trials including those with SUD and either anxiety disorders or elevations in constructs implicated in the maintenance of anxiety disorder/SUD comorbidity were included. This study meta-analyzes the effects of these studies.

Results: Integrated treatments outperformed SUD treatments alone on both substance use and anxiety outcomes, with small to moderate effects favoring integrated treatments. There was no significant heterogeneity across studies in the primary analyses, such that moderator analyses to identify variables that yielded differential patterns of effect sizes were not conducted.

Discussion: Integrated treatments for SUD/anxiety disorders demonstrate an incremental but significant and clinically meaningful improvement over SUD treatment alone for SUD/anxiety disorder comorbidity. Implications for future research and clinical practice paradigm shifting are discussed.

Keywords: Anxiety disorders; Comorbidity; Integrated behavioral treatment; Meta-analysis; Substance use disorders.