The treatment orders review team have been busy writing up our two complementary evidence syntheses with the help of our Patient and Public Involvement (PPI) group and our wider team of experts.

You can read an earlier blog about our project here.

What progress has been made with the review?

These papers have now been submitted to an academic journal in the field of justice and we are waiting to find out if that journal will publish them.

Our qualitative paper looks at people’s experiences and attitudes towards treatment orders, and our quantitative paper looks at the effects of treatment orders.

Our reviews aimed to find out whether drug and alcohol treatment orders improve or worsen people’s health and well-being. We also wanted to know what helps or prevents the use and success of treatment orders from the point of view of people who have received treatment orders, their family members and staff who are providing or enforcing treatment orders.

We hope to hear about the publications soon and will update you once we know more. We can then share our findings with you in more detail.

How has Patient and Public Involvement in Research helped our review?

Our PPI group members were very important in helping us with our reviews. They were people with personal experience of treatment orders, affected family members, significant others, and professional experts. We met with them several times throughout the project, and they provided insight into what it is like to experience a treatment order, how they affect individuals and families, and how treatment orders work within the courts and in the community. We invited them to take part in all aspects of the reviews and met with them regularly.

Our Project Lead, Professor Emma France says “Our PPI members made a big difference to this review. The real-world experiences they shared helped us to understand the effect of substance use, and the opportunities and barriers that treatment orders provide. They have been instrumental in helping to develop and write this treatment orders review, we are really grateful to them.”

How did we work together with our PPI group?

• Their insights and experience helped us to decide which studies to include in the reviews
• We asked them what information was important for us to look for and analyse in the included studies
• They told us, in their experience, what was good and bad about treatment orders
• They advised us on issues that were of importance to them such as homelessness and unemployment

What’s next?

We recently met with our wider team of experts and discussed different ways of how we can share our findings from our review; there are plenty of ideas for how we can do this once we have published. We also plan to write a short commentary about PPI involvement in this topic area.

If you would like to know more about our work or if you would like to contact us please visit the NESSIE website.

Blog by Dr Bridget Davies, Dr Pauline Campbell and Professor Emma France

Update on our mandatory drug and alcohol treatment orders project / NESSIE - NIHR Evidence Synthesis Scotland InitiativE by blogadmin is licensed under a Creative Commons Attribution CC BY 3.0