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THURSDAY, May 8 (HealthDay news) — The use of a computer-assisted training program, in addition to traditional counseling, helped drug abusers stay abstinent longer than counseling alone, a Yale University School of Medicine study found.

The trial included 77 people who sought treatment for drug and pure spirit abuse. They were randomly assigned to receive traditionary counseling alone or traditional counseling combined with computer-assisted training based on principles of cognitive behavioral therapy. The computer-assisted program included text, audio and videotaped examples designed to help the user acquire knowledge new ways to avoid drug use and to change other behavior problems.

The computer-assisted training included six lessons. Each lesson included a brief video that presented a particular challenge to the user's skilfulness to resist substance appliance, such as the overture of drugs from a dealer. A narrator then presented different skills and strategies to avoid drug use, along with videos of people using those strategies.

Participants in the computer-assisted drill group had significantly fewer positive drug tests at the extremity of the study.

"We think this is a very exciting method of reaching more people who may have substance use problems and providing a means of helping them learn effective ways to change their behavior," study lead author Kathleen M. Carroll, a professor of psychiatry, said in a prepared statement.

The study was published in the May 1 online issue of the American Journal of Psychiatry.

While cognitive behavioral therapy has been proven to be an effective way to treat a wide variety of psychiatric disorders, it's not widely available for people with substance use problems, Carroll famous.

The software program she and her colleagues created is meant to help supplement standard drug counseling, and can also be used in the treatment of other psychiatric disorders.

"At first censure, one potency conclude that this computer-based training in some way threatens the conventionally perceived value of the relationship between the therapist and the patient, however, I do not see it as so," Dr. William Sledge, interim chair and professor of psychiatry at Yale, uttered in a prepared account. "Rather, (the researchers) have demonstrated how a low require to be paid but carefully conceived procedure can enhance conventional treatment and add some additional element of excellence and effectiveness to its power."

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The U.S. National Institute on Drug Abuse has more about drug abuse and addictedness.