Combating substance abuse with ibogaine: pre- and posttreatment recommendations and an example of successive model fitting analyses.
Journal of psychoactive drugs June 1, 2004 James B Hittner, Susan B Quello 3 citations
Ibogaine, an alkaloid from the African shrub Tabernanthe iboga, has been used medicinally and ceremonially in West Central Africa. Anecdotal reports and recent studies suggest it alleviates withdrawal symptoms and reduces drug cravings. However, articles typically neglect psychological and environmental factors that could improve treatment outcomes. This review proposes theory-driven pretreatment and posttreatment recommendations to enhance ibogaine's effectiveness. It also demonstrates, through reanalysis of published results, the value of successive model fitting analyses to examine associations between pretreatment variables and posttreatment outcomes. To aid future reviews, the authors recommend a minimum set of patient- and treatment-related variables be included in all ibogaine studies with human participants.