The Impact of Suicidality and Spirituality on Substance Use Day Treatment Discharge.

Purpose: Although spirituality seems to protect against suicidality and substance misuse, in 2022 81% of United States residents believe in God and yet prevalence of these global health issues are increasing. 12-Step programs are inherently spiritual in their approach to recovery.

Method: We used a clinically mined dataset built from everyday clinical data that a substance use day treatment program in a midwestern state of the USA originally collected for their treatment purposes. Data included information from 444 client files from three day treatment sites within the same agency. Using logistic regression, we analyzed the relationships between suicidality, spirituality, and treatment discharge.

Results: Suicidality and spirituality, including 12-Step involvement prior to treatment, did not have a statistically significant effect on substance use day treatment discharge. However, treatment length and age were associated with completed treatment.

Discussion and conclusion: While spirituality and suicidality are important concepts with relevance to recovery, they did not affect whether clients completed substance use day treatment. However, because recovery is not just about abstinence or risk reduction, suicidality and spiritually likely have relevance for the overall recovery process.