Literature review

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Institution
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The article by Negrei et al. (2015) represents a study whose objective was to evaluate the effectiveness of methadone and Suboxone in the treatment of heroin dependence among heroin-addicted patients. This was a qualitative study as the data collected was qualitative in nature. The data, which was collected through demographic questionnaires, included drug-use history, socio-demographic status, psychiatric and somatic co-morbidities.
Methadone and suboxone have increasingly been used in the treatment of opiate addiction. These substances are used in the detoxification process with a goal of reducing the acute heroin withdrawal symptoms thus easing the patient to the long-term treatment program. The drugs are administered to the patient during the heroin withdrawal period to minimize the danger of heroin withdrawal symptoms. They are considered easy to manage and thus effective in enhancing patient stability in during heroin withdrawal.
The study presented in the article involved 40 participants addicted to heroin use recruited through voluntary participation. 30 of these participants were subjected to methadone substitution treatment and 10 were subjected to Suboxone substitution treatment throughout a monitoring period of one year. Data were collected through questionnaires administered to the participants. The possible correlation between the parameters measured was examined through the use of specific statistics tools such as Pearson correlations.

(Negrei et al., 2015).
The results of the study suggested that more than half of the participants had a previous opioids dependence treatment. There was no significant difference between the two substitution treatments in terms of psychiatric and somatic co-morbidities, age at first use, or previous addition treatments. There was also no difference between the two substitution treatments with regard to relapse to heroin use after the treatment monitoring period. However, the ratio of methadone treatment was high compared to Suboxone treatment. This was associated with the fact that suboxone substitution treatment has a higher cost of treatment compared to methadone treatment. Thus, it was concluded that methadone remains an effective and most used treatment for heroin addiction largely due to its high acceptability by patients as well as its high influence on morbidity and mortality resulting from opioid dependence. (Negrei et al., 2015).
Reference
Negrei, C., Stan, M., Frănculescu, A., Dumitru, M. L. B., Bălălău, C., Ginghină, O., … & Baconi, D. (2015). Addiction today: a short evaluation in substitute treatment of heroin users. Romanian journal of cognitive behavioral therapy and hypnosis, 2(1), e211-e211.