Research on Outpatient Adolescent Treatment for Comorbid Substance Use and Internalizing Disorders

Summary

Adolescent substance abuse results in significant negative outcomes and extraordinary costs for youths, their families, communities, and society. Moreover, rates of psychiatric comorbidity among substance abusing youth range from 25% up to 82%, and youths with a dual diagnosis are more than twice as costly to treat compared to those with no comorbidity. The applicant principal investigator recently completed a pilot project funded by the National Institute on Drug Abuse focused on developing and piloting a psychosocial treatment specifically for youth presenting for outpatient treatment with co-occurring substance use and internalizing (i.e., mood and/or anxiety) problems. Results were promising with the experimental group exhibiting significantly less substance use and more rapid reductions in anxiety and depressive symptoms compared to the control group. The proposed research is a randomized clinical trial (RCT) to compare the experimental treatment (OutPatient Treatment for Adolescents; OPT-A) to an "active placebo" on key clinical indices from pre-treatment through 18 months. The proposed RCT (n = 160) employs the treatment manual, quality assurance protocol, and therapist training protocol developed and successfully tested in the pilot study, to evaluate the efficacy of OPT-A for youth referred to outpatient treatment of co-occurring substance use and internalizing problems. The following outcomes will be evaluated: drug use; mental health; behavioral, school, peer, and family functioning; and consumer satisfaction. The intervention addresses one of the more prevalent and most challenging, costly, and understudied presenting problems among adolescent outpatients. If successful, this research could provide a considerable contribution in the treatment field for youth with co-occurring substance use and internalizing disorders.

Conditions

• Substance-Related Disorders
• Depressive Disorder
• Anxiety Disorder

Interventions

BEHAVIORAL

OutPatient Treatment for Adolescents (OPT-A)

BEHAVIORAL

Treatment As Usual

Sponsors & Collaborators

• National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)

  collaborator NIH

• Medical University of South Carolina

  lead OTHER

Principal Investigators

• Ashli J Sheidow, PhD · Medical University of South Carolina, Department of Psychiatry & Behavioral Sciences, Family Services Research Center

Study Design

Allocation

RANDOMIZED

Purpose

TREATMENT

Masking

SINGLE

Model

PARALLEL

Eligibility

Min Age

10 Years

Max Age

17 Years

Sex

ALL

Healthy Volunteers

No

Timeline & Regulatory

Start

2009-07-31

Primary Completion

2014-06-30

Completion

2014-06-30

Countries

• United States

Study Locations