@article{ref1,
title="A novel application of propensity score matching to estimate Alcoholics Anonymous' effect on drinking outcomes",
journal="Drug and alcohol dependence",
year="2013",
author="Magura, Stephen and McKean, Joseph and Kosten, Scott and Tonigan, J. Scott",
volume="129",
number="1-2",
pages="54-59",
abstract="BACKGROUND: Randomized controlled trials (RCTs) of mutual aid, including Alcoholics Anonymous (AA), are notoriously difficult to conduct and correlational studies are problematic to interpret due to potential confounds. METHODS: A secondary analysis was conducted of Project MATCH, a RCT of alcoholism treatments. Although MATCH did not randomly assign subjects to AA vs. no AA, the 12 step facilitation (TSF) condition did result in a higher proportion of subjects attending community AA meetings than in the other two treatment conditions. The key inference is that there exists a latent subgroup in MATCH who attended AA only because its constituents received TSF, not because of the &quot;normal&quot; factors leading to self-selection of AA. A novel application of propensity score matching (PSM) allowed four latent AA-related subgroups to be identified to estimate an unconfounded effect of AA on drinking outcomes. RESULTS: The study hypothesis was supported: subjects who consistently attended AA solely due to their exposure to TSF (the &quot;Added AA&quot; subgroup) had better drinking outcomes than equivalent subjects who did not consistently attend AA, but would have so attended, had they been exposed to TSF (the &quot;Potential AA&quot; subgroup); this indicates an AA effect on drinking. CONCLUSIONS: The analysis presents evidence that consistent AA attendance improves drinking outcomes, independent of &quot;normal&quot; confounding factors that make correlations between AA attendance and outcomes difficult to interpret.<p /> <p>Language: en</p>",
language="en",
issn="0376-8716",
doi="10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.09.011",
url="http://dx.doi.org/10.1016/j.drugalcdep.2012.09.011"
}