Gender differences in the treatment of the opiate dependence with naltrexone

Abstract

Introduction. We want to know the influence of gender factor in the consumption characteristics, social support and evolution in treatment with naltrexone in an opiate addict group.

Material and methods. 1.432 patients (83.1 % males and 16.9% females) recruited over a 12 year period who successively initiated treatment period years with naltrexone. Retrospective observance study, with design of treatment group without control group. We evaluated the role of gender in retention with the Mantel-Cox test. The differences were analyzed according to the gender with contingency tables.

Results. One year retention for all of them was 29.75%, this being 30.92% for men and 23.97% for women. This difference is significant at one year according to the Mantel-Cox test (statistics: 8.38%; gl: 1; signification: 0.0038). Women show less frequency of cocaine use (p=0.011) and less use of intravenous cocaine (p=0.048), lower frequency of consumption of alcohol (p=0.000) and cannabis (p=0.002), a shorter period of heroine abuse (p=0.016) and a higher proportion of them only use heroine (p=0.015).

They have less economic independence (p = 0.001), their partner is more frequently an addict (p=0.000), they have less help for the treatment from a non-consuming partner (p=0.000).

Conclusions. There are outstanding differences with regard to consume characteristics, social support and evolution of the treatment according to the gender (either male or female). Men have better prognosis than women in the population studied. These differences seem to be due to the sociocultural contents of the gender concept.