Perspectives of treatment efficacy with the substance dependent physician: a national survey.

A national survey was conducted to assess the judgments of two sets of respondents (administrators of state physician health programs and highly experienced clinicians) about the effectiveness of treatment programs for chemically dependent physicians. Administrators consistently estimated higher rates of patient success (and less relapse) than their practitioner counterparts. Clinicians also identified factors (patient, therapist, group composition, context) they believed to be the most robust predictors of outcome with chemically impaired doctors. Implications of the findings for the conceptualization and design of prospective treatment outcome studies are addressed.