Drug dependency is a recurrent but treatable kind of addiction. However, not all people who are drug dependent progress in the same way once they stop taking drugs. A new study shows that, in the case of cocaine, a high score on the so-called 'scale of craving', an antisocial personality type and previous heroin abuse are the factors most commonly involved in people falling back into the habit.

Ana López, lead author of the study and a researcher at the University of Santiago de Compostela (USC), tells SINC that the objectives of the new study were: "To understand the factors linked to treatment outcomes, in order to help people get the right kind of treatment, reduce their chances of abandoning the treatment, ensure they stop using drugs and don't fall back into the habit".

The study, published in the Spanish journal Psicología Conductual, analyses the significant factors (sociodemographic, psychopathological and patterns of drug and other substance abuse) involved in patients continuing to use cocaine two years after having requested treatment…