Gender issues in the treatment of abusers of alcohol, nicotine, and other drugs.

This review considers gender issues in the recent literature for alcohol, nicotine, and other psychoactive drug abuse and for each of the three drug types reports: (1) the ratio of men to women treated; (2) gender differences in treatment outcome; (3) whether the senior author's gender is related to the gender ratio of subjects in studies; and (4) the percentage of studies reporting methodological variables by gender (e.g., dropouts, outcome). No evidence for sex differences was obtained for any drug class. However, despite the recognized importance of gender as a treatment variable, the majority (72%) of studies failed to address gender differences in treatment outcome.