NCJ Number
182915
Journal
Journal of Psychoactive Drugs Volume: 32 Issue: 1 Dated: January-March 2000 Pages: 95-105
Date Published
2000
Length
11 pages
Annotation
This study compared client profiles of adolescent amphetamine users to those of nonusers and examined the multivariate prediction of posttreatment drug use, criminal, and HIV-risk behavior outcomes in the year following their separation from treatment.
Abstract
Data were collected as part of a larger longitudinal study of a sample of 938 adolescents who were admitted to residential therapeutic community drug treatment programs across the eastern United States and Canada from April 1992 through April 1994. A subsample of 485 adolescents were reinterviewed 1 year after their separation from treatment. Findings show that amphetamine users tended to be white, older, and have parents with higher educational and occupational levels than nonusers; however, they also had more psychopathology, more extensive drug use and criminal histories, and were engaged in more HIV-risk behaviors than nonusers. Additionally, amphetamine users tended to come from homes in which one or both parents used illicit drugs, drank regularly, or had a mental illness, and they often reported histories of childhood maltreatment. Analyses of the 1-year follow-up data showed that being an amphetamine user was not related to treatment outcome after the client's demographic characteristics, overall drug-use severity, and treatment completion were taken into account; therefore, therapeutic community treatment apparently is an effective means of treating adolescent amphetamine users. 4 tables and 30 references