Pharmacological treatment for substance use disorder: A systematic review
Abstract
Introduction There is strong evidence of the substance dependence has a negative impact on key dimensions of health. The scientific evidence suggests that pharmacological treatment could play a fundamental role in its clinical management.Objective The aim of this systematic review is to explore the existing pharmacological options for the treatment of substance use disorders.Methods Following PRISMA recommendations, a review of recent scientific literature was conducted using three sources of information: Pubmed /Medline, Web of Science, and Scopus. Only randomized controlled trials published in the last five years, in both English and Spanish, and subjected to peer review were selected. The quality of the methodology used was defined through the application of the PEDro scale for quantitative studies. It was registered in the PROSPERO database.Results After filtering through the respective advanced search engines, a total of 49 articles suitable for qualitative analysis were retrieved. Literature related to pharmacotherapy for alcohol use, as well as for cocaine, tobacco, cannabis, and opioid dependence, was identified among them.Conclusions There is a wide variety of drugs that can be used for the clinical management of dependence on these substances. Reflections are offered on the evidence of their effectiveness and the methodological rigor of the literature.
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Psychosocial and pharmacological treatments can be effective in reducing substance use and improving physical and mental health.
“as psychosocial and pharmacological treatments can be effective in reducing substance use and improving physical and mental health [5,6,7,8,9,10].”
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Choi, N. G., & Marti, C. N. (2025) · International Journal of Environmental Research and Public Health · doi:10.3390/ijerph22040640 · Cited by 8 · see citing works
- Authors
- Mateu-Mollá, J., Pérez-Gálvez, B., & Villanueva-Blasco, V. J.
- Affiliations
- Valencian International University (ES)
- ORCID
- Mateu-Mollá, Joaquín
- Venue
- Addictive Behaviors
- Publisher
- Elsevier BV
- Published
- 2025-04
- Volume
- 163
- Pages
- 108242
- ISSN
- 0306-4603 (ISSN-L)
- OpenAlex
- W4406011986
- Cited by
- 10
- References
- 63
- Citations by year
- 2026: 8 · 2025: 2
- FWCI
- 1.52
- Type
- journal article
- Language
- en
- Open access
- closed
- Licence
- Locations
- Addictive Behaviors (publishedVersion)
- PubMed (publishedVersion)
- Topics
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Epidemiology › Substance Abuse Treatment and Outcomes
- Health Sciences › Medicine › Public Health, Environmental and Occupational Health › Opioid Use Disorder Treatment
- Social Sciences › Psychology › Clinical Psychology › Gambling Behavior and Treatments
- Keywords
- substance use disorders, pharmacotherapy, alcoholism, cocaine dependence, tobacco dependence, cannabis use disorder, opioid use disorder, addiction treatment, treatment effectiveness
- MeSH terms
- Marijuana Abuse, Humans, Opioid-Related Disorders, Tobacco Use Disorder, Randomized Controlled Trials as Topic, Substance-Related Disorders, Cocaine-Related Disorders
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