Application of Causal Forest Model to Examine Treatment Effect Heterogeneity in Substance Use Disorder Psychosocial Treatments.

ABSTRACT:

Objectives

Heterogeneity of treatment effect (HTE) is a concern in substance use disorder (SUD) treatments but has not been rigorously examined. This exploratory study applied a causal forest approach to examine HTE in psychosocial SUD treatments, considering multiple covariates simultaneously.

Methods

Data from 12 randomized controlled trials of nine psychosocial treatments were obtained from the National Institute on Drug Abuse Clinical Trials Network. Using causal forests, we estimated the conditional average treatment effect (CATE) on drug abstinence. To assess HTE, we compared CATE variance against total outcome variability, conducted an omnibus test, and applied the Rank-Weighted Average Treatment Effect (RATE).

Results

Across nine interventions, CATE variance w

SUBMITTER: Susukida R 

PROVIDER: S-EPMC11675088 | biostudies-literature | 2025 Mar

REPOSITORIES: biostudies-literature