The Narconon Drug Rehabilitation Program: Ongoing Program Evaluation

September 11-12, 1997
Presentation by Shelley L. Beckman. Ph.D.
International Conference on Human Detoxification

Introduction

During the past three years, there has been an ongoing evaluation of the Narconon program at two Narconon facilities in the United States. These facilities are located in Los Angeles, California, and Chilocco, Oklahoma. This ongoing evaluation is aimed at both monitoring some of the factors involved in delivery of the Narconon program and at assessing the long term results of this comprehensive socio-educational approach.

The purpose of this evaluation was three-fold:

1. The first goal of this evaluation was to monitor ongoing delivery to the clients at both Narconon facilities. Daily and weekly reports provided information on each client on the program. This ongoing evaluation afforded a detailed picture of what it takes to deliver rehabilitation service to hard core drug addicts.
2. The second goal of this study was to evaluate the success of the Narconon program in retaining clients through the full treatment regimen.
3. The third goal of this study was to assess the long term efficacy of the Narconon program. Efficacy measures included ability to stay off of drugs, criminal behavior and educational or career progress

Study Design

The client population included every client who started the Narconon program at either Narconon Los Angeles or Narconon Arrowhead during the study period. By including every client we avoided bias in the selection.

The initial evaluation included a comprehensive interview based on the widely used "Addiction Severity Index" and quantitative testing for drugs of abuse in a urine sample, taken on arrival. (The severity index has been used in many evaluations of drug rehabilitation programs.)

The progress of each client was then monitored throughout the study via a daily report and periodic urine testing.

A total of 273 clients participated in this study.