Neurocognitive Predictors of Drug Relapse

Worldwide, about 35 million people, that is 0.8% of the world’s adult population, use heroin and/or cocaine and more than 10-13% of these drug users are or will become drug dependent (UNODC, World Drug Report, 2012). Drug dependency is characterized as a chronic relapsing disorder (Leshner, 1997; McLellan et al., 2000). Substance dependent individuals often relapse, despite their efforts to stay abstinent (APA, 1994). Hence, the major goal of treatment facilities is to prevent treatment dropout and subsequent relapse. Unfortunately, about 50% of heroin and cocaine dependent patients already dropout in the first phase of clinical treatments, which is the detoxification phase. These dropout rates are consistent across several countries and remained steady over the years (the Netherlands: Franken and Hendriks, 1999; Switzerland: Hättenschwiler et al., 2000; United Kingdom: Gossop et al., 2002; Day and Strang, 2011). In addition, treatment dropout is associated with higher relapse rates (Gossop et al., 1987, 2002). There is ample room for improving these dropout and relapse rates of substance dependent patients. To improve treatment for these patients we first have to know the factors predicting relapse.

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