This application is a request for continuation of the grant, """"""""Addicts and Their Children: A Data-Based Intervention Trial"""""""". The proposed research extends the survey and preventive intervention approach to female narcotic addicts incarcerated at the Maryland Correctional Institution for Women (MCIW) and their adolescent children. This extension will enhance the meaningfulness of the ongoing survey of transgenerational influences on substance abuse and deviance and will allow the application of the intervention to an even higher at-risk population of children. Consistent with past procedures, the new psychoeducational approach, primarily directed at the children, will also include sessions with the incarcerated mothers and the current caretakers of the children. An intervention trial will be conducted to compare the effectiveness of a 16-week prevention approach, combined with needs-assessment services, with needs-assessment services alone. One hundred fifty-six families (mother, child, caretaker) will be involved in the trial, half of whom will be randomly assigned to a treatment, or experimental, group and half to a control group. Assessment measures, which will include self-report, standardized instruments measuring behavior and psychopathology, and school and juvenile services records, will be obtained prior to and at the end of the intervention and at 10-month follow-up. In addition to extending the research on prevention to a new population of addicts and their children, this continuation will also allow the obtaining of longer-term follow-up data on the original treatment (N = 52) and control (N = 52) samples of the children of narcotic addicts enrolled in methadone treatment programs.
| Nurco, D N; Blatchley, R J; Hanlon, T E et al. (1999) Early deviance and related risk factors in the children of narcotic addicts. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse 25:25-45 |
| Nurco, D N; Blatchley, R J; Hanlon, T E et al. (1998) The family experiences of narcotic addicts and their subsequent parenting practices. Am J Drug Alcohol Abuse 24:37-59 |
