Love those stat's

[Kathy]

Information for the study of Pathway's outcomes was collected from 51 percent of clients and 61 percent of parents with the following results:


          98% of adolescents reported that they did not return to prior drug severity
          90% reported improved quality of life
          88% reported improved self esteem
          88% reported improved family relationships
          82% presently clean and sober
Well, these are some of the most interesting stat's I've ever seen.  So what they are saying is 82% out of 51% of the clients are presently clean and sober.  I'm not the mathematician type, so can one of you math-types pleas tell me exactly how much 82% of 51% is?

And I don't understand how they can say that their relapse rate is only 10% if they only survey half of the clients.

Someone, enlighten me, please! :eek:

[Antigen]

That would be roughly 42% Hmm. 42. The meaning of life, the universe and everything.

If you want to know the question, though, that could take some time. I wonder how they selected the 51% to interview? And I wonder if these kids were worried about getting started over if they didn't give the right answers?

We can easily forgive a child who is afraid of the dark.  The real tragedy of life is when men are afraid of the light.  
--Plato

[Anonymous]

shut up ass

[Anonymous]

The way they compile those stats is that they mail questionnaires or ask students if they will participate when they are on-site.

This leads to misleadingly positive results for 3 reasons:

1) Those who take the time to return a survey tend to be those who are "successes"-- those who aren't doing well tend to blame themselves and be embarrassed, and therefore less likely to return a survey.  Also, those who did really poorly may be at another address-- in some cases, in jail or on the street.

So if 90% of the 50% who return the survey are doing well (45% of total) and we are generous and assume that only 50% of the non-returners are relapsers (25%), you wind up with a "success rate of 70%.  If you are not generous, you wind up with a 45% "success".

And we haven't even gotten into how success is defined-- these programs tend to call for total abstinence, but when it comes to measuring success, they simply talk about "less" use, even though they teach people that "less" use is impossible if you have the "disease of addiction."

If they measured by the standard of total abstinence since day left program including from alcohol, they'd probably come up with 5% success, even amongst the grads.

2) those who are surveyed on-site are probably afraid to say anything bad.

3) Drop outs are never surveyed.

Medical research has had to develop a form of analysis called "intention to treat" in order to deal with the fact that success rates can be made artificially high if you don't include treatment drop outs.  Intent-to-treat studies include everyone who started the program, even dropouts.

This murders the success rate of programs like Phoenix House and Daytop, which claim that 80% are sober 5 years later.  This is true of *graduates*-- but since some 80-90% drop out without graduating, you wind up with 15-20% clean in intent-to-treat analysis.  

Not coincidentally, this is exactly the rate that gets clean with no treatment-- so what you have done is essentially weed out the people that don't want to stop and kept in those who are so desperate to stop that they are willing to do anything and so probably would have gotten clean if the program was nothing more than standing on your head.

So that's how to lie with drug treatment statistics 101.

[Tony Danza]

Hail TONY!

[Anonymous]

:wstupid:

wow thats about as interesting as my small pecker, ass...

[Anonymous]

shut up and dont bother replying to any messages because you suck at life

[Anonymous]

[KING OF EVIL]

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[Anonymous]

On 2004-01-13 14:49:00, Anonymous wrote:

"

The way they compile those stats is that they mail questionnaires or ask students if they will participate when they are on-site.



This leads to misleadingly positive results for 3 reasons:



1) Those who take the time to return a survey tend to be those who are "successes"-- those who aren't doing well tend to blame themselves and be embarrassed, and therefore less likely to return a survey.  Also, those who did really poorly may be at another address-- in some cases, in jail or on the street.



So if 90% of the 50% who return the survey are doing well (45% of total) and we are generous and assume that only 50% of the non-returners are relapsers (25%), you wind up with a "success rate of 70%.  If you are not generous, you wind up with a 45% "success".



And we haven't even gotten into how success is defined-- these programs tend to call for total abstinence, but when it comes to measuring success, they simply talk about "less" use, even though they teach people that "less" use is impossible if you have the "disease of addiction."



If they measured by the standard of total abstinence since day left program including from alcohol, they'd probably come up with 5% success, even amongst the grads.



2) those who are surveyed on-site are probably afraid to say anything bad.



3) Drop outs are never surveyed.



Medical research has had to develop a form of analysis called "intention to treat" in order to deal with the fact that success rates can be made artificially high if you don't include treatment drop outs.  Intent-to-treat studies include everyone who started the program, even dropouts.



This murders the success rate of programs like Phoenix House and Daytop, which claim that 80% are sober 5 years later.  This is true of *graduates*-- but since some 80-90% drop out without graduating, you wind up with 15-20% clean in intent-to-treat analysis.  



Not coincidentally, this is exactly the rate that gets clean with no treatment-- so what you have done is essentially weed out the people that don't want to stop and kept in those who are so desperate to stop that they are willing to do anything and so probably would have gotten clean if the program was nothing more than standing on your head.



So that's how to lie with drug treatment statistics 101."

This is not accurate. The clients and parents were first contacted by a mail in survey which only about 5% responded. After the mail in survey, phone contact with former clietns was attempted to reach the other clients.

The success rates were computed from teh clients contacted and the demographic information was obtained the remaining people who were not contacted (Often ebcause they changed their address or phone number). There was no significant difference in time in the program and comlpetion between responders and non responders.

Also, every client was attempted to be contacted (drop outs or not) In fact graduates made up only about 40% of the clietns contacted.

[Mike007]

To "Anonymous", directly above:

  It only takes 2 minutes to register on this site, if you haven't yet.
  "Anonymous posting encouraged" is to facilitate open communication from those who may need confidentiality (e.g. medical or psych. patients)
  There is no excuse for your making an "anonymous" posting, when you claim to present "authorized" statistical data, as a representative of Pathways.
  (One "excuse", though, is the fact that you are an INCOMPETENT FOOL, as evidenced by your writing.)
  Anyone can make an occasional error, but you have 15 substantial errors in the short posting above...
  Look at the spelling errors, for Christ's sake!
  In the second paragraph, you decay into honest-to-God incoherence.  I challenge anyone to try and decipher the first sentence of paragraph 2.
  Have you been drinking, by any chance??
  I daresay that you are a good representative for Pathways:  functionally illiterate, incoherent, incompetent, biased, apologetic, and "on the take" (i.e. your paycheck).

  I DEMAND THAT YOU IDENTIFY YOURSELF.

 - Mike Stevenson,       ( Mike007 )
   Journalist
   Ann Arbor, Mich.
   mattblack001@yahoo.com

[Antigen]

On 2004-04-20 15:56:00, Anonymous wrote:

The success rates were computed from teh clients contacted and the demographic information was obtained the remaining people who were not contacted (Often ebcause they changed their address or phone number).

They changed their number and didn't tell you? Hint, hint! I'll tell you now, I would never have returned a call from Straight, Inc. If I happened to answer the phone, I might well have lied and told them "she's" not in right now.

In other words, your study population is self selecting. Only people eager or intimidated to help the Program generate some bogus PR material are likely to respond.

[Anonymous]

My family was never contacted and I specifically offered, when we pulled after 1 yr. That we would be more than happy at any time in the future to answer any questions.  We were contacted by mail for the  annual dinner/dance fundraiser!
In fact I know families that graduated but did not continue after care, and they are never spoken to either.

Sincerely,
Parent of 4th level graduate.

[webcrawler]

On 2005-05-03 12:53:00, Anonymous wrote:

"My family was never contacted and I specifically offered, when we pulled after 1 yr. That we would be more than happy at any time in the future to answer any questions.  We were contacted by mail for the  annual dinner/dance fundraiser!

In fact I know families that graduated but did not continue after care, and they are never spoken to either.



Sincerely,

Parent of 4th level graduate."

Hopefully you wil be back to read this anon. Was your child in straight or pathways (I know same demon, different name)? Would you be willing to share what made you decide to pull your child?

[Anonymous]

You know what? Why not concentrate on the lucky percentage that actually got the help that they needed. Pathway is not a place for everyone, it is a service that is needed for adolescents that are so far into addiction that they need professional help to overcome the problem and learn the tools. You should stop complaining and be happy that people exist out there who care so much about kids and substance abuse issues. You better be careful of the words that you type, some parent could be out there reading something negative about a service that can potentially help to save their child's life.