Contingency management: utility in the treatment of drug abuse disorders.

Contingency management (CM) is a strategy that uses positive reinforcement to improve the clinical outcomes of substance abusers in treatment, especially sustained abstinence from drugs of abuse. Further, CM has been adopted to improve methodology and interpretation of outcomes in clinical trials testing new pharmacotherapies and to improve adherence to efficacious medications in substance abuse patients. Thus, CM has proven to be widely useful as a direct therapeutic intervention and as a tool in treatment development.