Being at work improves stress, craving, and mood for people with opioid use disorder: Ecological momentary assessment during a randomized trial of experimental employment in a contingency-management-based therapeutic workplace

Novel methods for the remote investigation of emerging substances: Application to kratom

The botanical product commonly called "kratom" is still relatively novel to the United States. Like other natural products marketed as supplements, kratom is highly variable, both in terms of the alkaloids naturally occurring in kratom leaves and in terms of processing and formulation. Kratom products sold in the United States are not well-characterized, nor are daily use patterns among regular users. Surveys and case reports have comprised most of the literature on kratom use among humans. To advance our understanding of real-world kratom use, we developed a protocol for the remote study of regular kratom-using adults in the United States. Our study had three aspects implemented in one pool of participants nationwide: an in-depth online survey, 15 days of ecological momentary assessment (EMA) via smartphone app, and the collection and assay of the kratom products used by participants during EMA. Here, we describe these methods, which can be used to investigate myriad drugs or supplements. Recruiting, screening, and data collection occurred between July 20, 2022 and October 18, 2022. During this time, we demonstrated that these methods, while challenging from a logistical and staffing standpoint, are feasible and can produce high-quality data. The study achieved high rates of enrollment, compliance, and completion. Substances that are emerging or novel, but still largely legal, can be productively studied via nationwide EMA combined with assays of shipped product samples from participants. We discuss challenges and lessons learned so other investigators can adapt these methods. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2024 APA, all rights reserved).

Effects of economic context and reward amount on delay and probability discounting

Steep delay and shallow probability discounting are associated with myriad problem behaviors; thus, it is important to understand factors that influence the degree of discounting. The present study evaluated the effects of economic context and reward amount on delay and probability discounting. Two hundred thirteen undergraduate psychology students completed four delay- or probability-discounting tasks. Participants were exposed to hypothetical narratives involving four bank amounts ($750, $12,000, $125,000, and $2,000,000). The delayed/probabilistic amount was $3,000 for the two smaller bank amounts and $500,000 for the two larger bank amounts. The discounting tasks included five delays to, or probabilities of, receipt of the larger amount. The area under the empirical discounting function was calculated for each participant. Participants discounted delayed and uncertain outcomes more when the bank amount was smaller than the outcome (i.e., the economic context was low). Participants discounted the delayed larger amounts less than delayed smaller amounts, even when the relative economic context was the same. In contrast, probability discounting did not differ across magnitudes, which suggests that economic context may attenuate the magnitude effect in probability discounting. The results further highlight the importance of considering the economic context in delay and probability discounting.

Outpatient substance abuse treatment completion rates for racial-ethnic minorities during the Great Recession

There has been minimal research linking the effects on racial-ethnic minorities' health outcomes, particularly research focused on racial-ethnic minorities seeking outpatient substance abuse treatment in the United States. The Great Recession from December 2007 to June 2009 in the United States provides the backdrop against the completion of substance abuse treatments among racial-ethnic minorities that may be associated with the impacts on users' social realities. We utilized data from the 2006-2011 Treatment Episode Datasets-Discharge (TEDS-D) dataset which collects data on outpatient substance abuse treatment institutions throughout the United States. The substance abuse treatment completion rates were higher prior to the Great Recession and lower following the Great Recession. Hispanics were more likely than non-Hispanic whites to complete substance abuse treatment, while other minority groups such as Non-Hispanic Blacks, were less likely to do so. Clients in the Northeast and West regions were more likely to successfully complete substance abuse treatment than those in the South. These findings have implications for impacting outpatient substance abuse treatment completion rates following the Great Recession to reduce racial-ethnic disparities which were impacted by region. Even amid an economic recession, treatment for substance abuse should continue to be a top concern.

Variability in intensively assessed mood: Systematic sources and factor structure in outpatients with opioid use disorder

In intensive longitudinal studies using ecological momentary assessment, mood is typically assessed by repeatedly obtaining ratings for a large set of adjectives. Summarizing and analyzing these mood data can be problematic because the reliability and factor structure of such measures have rarely been evaluated in this context, which-unlike cross-sectional studies-captures between- and within-person processes. Our study examined how mood ratings (obtained thrice daily for 8 weeks; n = 306, person moments = 39,321) systematically vary and covary in outpatients receiving medication for opioid use disorder (MOUD). We used generalizability theory to quantify several aspects of reliability, and multilevel confirmatory factor analysis (MCFA) to detect factor structures within and across people. Generalizability analyses showed that the largest proportion of systematic variance across mood items was at the person level, followed by the person-by-day interaction and the (comparatively small) person-by-moment interaction for items reflecting low arousal. The best-fitting MCFA model had a three-factor structure both at the between- and within-person levels: positive mood, negative mood, and low-arousal states (with low arousal considered as either a separate factor or a subfactor of negative mood). We conclude that (a) mood varied more between days than between moments and (b) low arousal may be worth scoring and reporting separately from positive and negative mood states, at least in a MOUD population. Our three-factor structure differs from prior analyses of mood; more work is needed to understand the extent to which it generalizes to other populations. (PsycInfo Database Record (c) 2022 APA, all rights reserved).