بررسي كاركردهاي اجرايي در بيماران تحت درمان با متادون

The Executive Functions in Methadone Maintenance Patients

Objective: The main aim of the present study is to investigate the executive functions in methadone maintenance patients comparing with two control groups including the abstinent opiate abusers and healthy control subjects. Methods: 25 former opiate addicts receiving methadone maintenance treatments, 25 former opiate addicts withdrawn from all opiates, and 25 healthy controls without a history of drug dependence participated in this study. All groups were matched by age, level of education, and sex. The instruments include Wisconsin Cart Sorting Test, Beck depression Inventory, and State-Trait Anxiety Inventory. Results: The results have showed that there are significant differences on anxiety and depression across three groups, which means that the experimental group obtained high scores than the control groups. The methadone maintenance patients also performed worse than abstinent opiate abusers and healthy controls on WCST. Conclusion: The findings of this study are in line with those of the previous researches which found some neuropsychological impairment in long- term MMP recipients (mintzer and stitzer, 2002 and Lyvers, Yakimoff, 2003 ).