Pharmacological and herbal Treatments, Cognitive Behavioral Therapy, and Combined Approaches in Opioid Use Disorder: A Narrative Review

Abstract

Addiction to narcotics, also known as Opioid Use Disorder (OUD), brings many harms and challenges to the patient and society. Therefore, researchers have always sought to achieve more optimal protocols for the treatment of this disorder. Pharmacological treatments have been used for this purpose for a long time. In addition, the effectiveness of psychotherapies, specifically Cognitive Behavioral Therapy (CBT), has always been claimed in this regard. In the present study, the existing findings in the mentioned field have been reviewed. For this purpose, reputable scientific databases were searched using selected keywords. The extracted findings were analyzed and categorized, and then edited in several stages. Evidence clearly demonstrates the efficacy of pharmacotherapy as a cornerstone of care for opioid-dependent patients. On the other hand, available data suggest that the maintenance of treatment requires the prescription of psychotherapy, especially CBT. It seems that the combined use of these two therapeutic approaches, in addition to the short-term effect, will also lead to long-term care for the patient. Given that controlling opioid dependence has significant economic benefits for societies, designing and testing various combination protocols could be very cost-effective.

Keywords: Opioid Use Disorder, Addiction, Cognitive Behavioral therapy, Combination Therapy