Pharmacological treatment for substance use disorder: A systematic review

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.