TY  - JOUR
T1  - Alcoholism treatment research: New directions for an old problem
AU  - Gordis E, Fuller RK, Hewitt BG
Y1  - 1989/09/22
N1  - 10.1001/jama.1989.03430120134036
JO  - JAMA
SP  - 1680
EP  - 1681
VL  - 262
IS  - 12
N2  - Unlike areas in medicine where the rigorous scientific evaluation of treatments before patient exposure has become standard, validating the effectiveness of various treatments for alcoholism is a fairly new enterprise. The study of the efficacy of lithium carbonate as a treatment for alcoholism by Dorus et al,1 in this issue of The Journal, is highly encouraging since it demonstrates again that modern standards of treatment evaluation can be applied to alcoholism treatment.2Although earlier research in animals and in smaller-scale studies on human subjects had led to the hypothesis that lithium carbonate might be useful in treating alcoholics,3-5 Dorus and colleagues, in their large-scale, multisite evaluation, found that lithium carbonate did not affect the course of alcoholism in either depressed or nondepressed alcoholics. In conducting their study, the authors avoided weaknesses common to many alcoholism treatment studies. Principal among these weaknesses are having too few subjects to
SN  - 0098-7484
M3  - doi: 10.1001/jama.1989.03430120134036
UR  - http://dx.doi.org/10.1001/jama.1989.03430120134036
ER  -