Differences in Characteristics of Adolescent Drug Abuse Clients That Predict to Improvement: For Inpatient Treatment Versus Outpatient Treatment

• NCJ Number: 172907
• Journal: Journal of Child & Adolescent Substance Abuse Volume: 7 Issue: 3 Dated: 1998 Pages: 97-119
• Author(s): A S Friedman; A Terras; A Ali
• Date Published: 1998
• Length: 23 pages
• Grant Number(s): R01-DA-03754
• Sponsoring Agency: National Institute on Drug Abuse
• Publication Format: Article
• Language: English
• Country: United States of America

Annotation

Characteristics that predicted treatment outcome were determined separately for 157 adolescent drug abusers who received inpatient treatment and for 296 adolescent drug abusers who received outpatient treatment.

Abstract

Study participants were selected from cities in Texas, Ohio, Oregon, and Pennsylvania. The outpatient sample was 70 percent male, while the inpatient sample was 52 percent male. All participants were assessed using the Adolescent Drug Abuse Diagnosis instrument at admission and again at follow-up evaluation. The outcome criterion used was the degree of reduction in substance abuse. Of 33 predictor variables analyzed, 12 predicted inpatient outcome and 15 predicted outpatient outcome. Only two variables, school and not considering substance abuse to be harmful to health, predicted worse outcome for both treatment settings. Several characteristics found prognostic for adolescents were different than those reported earlier for adult substance abusers. For example, greater substance abuse at follow-up had been reported to be predicted by greater severity of alcohol and drug use at admission, for both inpatient and outpatient adults, but this was true only for outpatient adolescents in the current study. 18 references and 3 tables