Although substance abuse among adolescents is a major concern, very little is known about the post-treatment recovery/relapse process for this population or the factors that influence that process. While there are aftercare programs targeting adolescents, careful specifications of program components and systematic evaluation of their effectiveness is nearly nonexistent. The literature on adult substance abusers identifies some aftercare approaches that appear to influence the recovery process positively. The effectiveness of these approaches for the adolescent population is unknown. Therefore, researchers at Northern Illinois University and Rosecrance Center propose this study to assess the differential impact of two aftercare strategies on the relapse of adolescents who have completed a primary substance abuse treatment program. The research compares the outcomes of the support group/talk therapy model, emphasized by such organizations as Alcoholics Anonymous, with the outcomes of a professionally designed skill building strategy. Researchers hypothesize that adolescents randomly assigned to the skill- building treatment condition will be less likely to relapse and more likely to function effectively in social and school situations than those adolescents who participate in the support group intervention. This research is significant in that it: 1) targets adolescents, 2) takes into account the multidimensional nature of recovery, 3) is evaluated by a research team independent of the clinical staff directing the intervention, 4) uses an experimental design in which subjects are randomly assigned to treatment conditions, and 5) compares the effectiveness of the established treatment strategies.
| Spear, S F; Ciesla, J R; Skala, S Y (1999) Relapse patterns among adolescents treated for chemical dependency. Subst Use Misuse 34:1795-815 |
