This is a proposal to conduct an 18-month continuation of the field experiment, """"""""Risk Focused Prevention Training for Methadone Maintenance Families"""""""" more commonly referred to as Focus on Families (Grant# 5 R01 DA05824). The proposed continuation grant will enable the investigators to collect and analyze 2 year follow-up data. Analyses in progress show promising outcomes from the Focus on Families intervention. Experimentally assigned subjects showed increases in general problem solving skills and drug refusal relapse coping skills, increased self efficacy in their ability to resist drugs, increases in family meetings, and less use of narcotics in comparison to the control group.
Specific aims of the proposed project include: (1) collection of 2 year follow-up data from the final 2 cohorts of subjects (2) systematic evaluation of the long term impact of the focus on families intervention; and (30 understanding through longitudinal analyses factors associated with relapse among parents receiving methadone treatment. Previous research on parenting programs for high risk families have been limited by small sample sizes, short term non intensive programs, and short term follow-up. The Focus on Families intervention has been successful in addressing these problems. The project has recruited, exposed a large number of experimental subjects to an intensive program. Extensive data from both the parent and the child have been collected over time. Follow-up data collection rates are high across both the experimental and control population. Completion of the data collection and further analyses, however, are critical to evaluate the long term impact of the FOF intervention and to understand the process of relapse among this unique population.
