Trac9 Impact on Residential Addiction Treatment Outcomes
by Jared P. Dempsey, Ph.D., Kevin R. Jones
KEY FINDINGS
TRAC9 is a digital therapeutic system and measurement based care system that enhances residential addiction treatment through systematic symptom monitoring. This analysis examined outcomes from 97,960 treatment episodes to quantify the incremental benefit of TRAC9 utilization.
Active utilization of TRAC9 features, therapist data review and patient cue exposure exercises, was associated with substantial improvements beyond standard residential care with passive monitoring. Patients receiving treatment with optimal TRAC9 utilization achieved 82% greater symptom improvement compared to those with minimal system engagement (23.80 vs 13.08 GRS points, p < 0.001). This enhanced symptom improvement translated to reduced relapse risk, with optimal utilization associated with a 6.6 percentage point absolute risk reduction (42.1% to 35.5%) in one-year post-discharge substance use.
While standard residential treatment with basic monitoring provides the foundation of recovery (reducing relapse risk from approximately 50% untreated to approximately 42%), TRAC9’s therapeutic features offer meaningful optimization. The visual cue exposure component showed particularly strong effects, contributing more to outcomes than therapist review alone. These findings suggest structured cue exposure therapy may address a critical gap in traditional addiction treatment.
METHODS
The TRAC9 system assesses nine core domains of addiction recovery using primarily public-domain instruments, either in original form or with minor adaptations for the addiction context. The five symptom domains include: Anxiety (Penn State Worry Questionnaire), Depression (CES-D), Stress (Perceived Stress Scale), Verbal Craving (substance-specific questionnaires adapted by drug of choice), and Visual Craving (Cue exposure, serving as assessment and treatment). Commitment (Commitment to Sobriety Scale), Optimism (Life Orientation Test-Revised), Quality of Life in Addiction Recovery, and Spirituality (Religious Background and Behavior Questionnaire, God changed to Higher Power). Together, these nine domains form the Global Recovery Scale (GRS), with visual craving uniquely employing image-based cue-exposure while the remaining eight domains (GRSx) utilize traditional questionnaire formats (e.g., Likert).
