The Effectiveness of Methadone Maintenance Treatment in the Reduction of Anxiety and Depression Among Drug-Related Prisoners

Background: methadone effectively alleviates psychiatric disorders.objectives: the aim of this study was to evaluate the effectiveness of methadone maintenance therapy in reduction of anxiety and depression among drug-abuser prisoners in ahvaz karoon’s prison.patients and methods: in our interventional case-control study, 100 drug-abuser prisoners in ahvaz karoon’s prison, iran, with the symptoms of depression and anxiety according to symptom checklist (scl-90-r) were divided into methadone and control groups. methadone group prisoners filled out the questionnaire at the beginning of the study and 6 months after methadone therapy and their scores were recorded. similarly, 50 control group (without methadone or any other therapy) prisoners filled out the scl-90-r and their scores were recorded. afterwards, the data were collected and analyzed statistically by spss version 20. independent t-test was used for comparison between the case and the control group.results: the average ages of control and methadone groups were 42.24 ± 9.8 and 42.30 ± 9.8 years, respectively. the difference between groups regarding depression in methadone group (0.67 ± 0.49) and control group (2.82 ± 0.67) was significant (p = 0.001). the difference between methadone (0.59 ± 0.24) and control (2.56 ± 0.38) groups regarding anxiety was significant (p = 0.001). the difference in obsession between methadone (0.51 ± 0.25) and control (2.78 ± 0.43) groups was significant (p = 0.001). moreover, the difference between hostility in methadone (0.61 ± 0.43) and control (2.48 ± 0.52) groups was significant (p = 0.001).conclusions: this study indicated that methadone effectively alleviates psychiatric disorders in drug addicts . furthermore, methadone maintenance treatment improved patients’ quality of life and kept them in a mood-stabilization stage.