Nuttbrock L A, Rahav M R, Rivera J J, Ng-Mak D S
Argus Community, Inc.
Addict Behav. 1999 Jan-Feb;24(1):139-44. doi: 10.1016/s0306-4603(98)00041-0.
In assessing the socioenvironmental characteristics of psychiatric treatment programs, researchers typically assume that their measurements are unaffected by client characteristics. However, our analysis among mentally ill chemical abusers in a therapeutic community and community residences found significant associations between subscales of the Community Oriented Program Evaluation Scale (COPES) and depressive symptoms, as measured by the CES-D, after 2, 6, and 12 months of treatment. Investigators of treatment environments should consider depressive symptoms as a possible threat to the validity of their findings.
