ADOLESCENT USE OF ALCOHOL AND DRUG TREATMENT SERVICES

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DESCRIPTION: (Applicant's Abstract) Recent findings from the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and the Monitoring the Future Study have shown that drug use among adolescents has continued to climb. To more effectively counter this phenomenon it is necessary to improve our understanding of the level of need for adolescent alcohol and drug treatment services and the patterns of adolescent service use for substance use related problems. To date, however, very little is known about: 1) how and where adolescents get help for their substance use problems; 2) whether or not the available services actually meet adolescent needs for treatment of alcohol and drug related problems; and 3) how sociodemographic and other family and individual factors affect adolescent use of alcohol and drug treatment services. The proposed study is intended to make an important contribution toward filling these knowledge gaps. Most service research in this field is based on adults or on clinical samples. Because the National Household Survey on Drug Abuse in recent years has added questions about use of treatment services for alcohol and drug related problems, mental health status and use of mental health treatment services, there is now an unique opportunity to examine adolescent use of alcohol and drug treatment services in the community. The proposed study is a secondary data analysis of information obtained from adolescents (ages 12-17), participating in the 1994 (N=4698) and 1995 (N=4595) National Household Survey on Drug Abuse and a subsample of parent-child pairs. This study will: 1) assess adolescent need, unmet need and use of alcohol/drug treatment services in the community; 2) assess the relationship of adolescent substance use, abuse and co-occurrence of other emotional and behavioral problems to alcohol/drug treatment and mental health service utilization; 3) assess the effects of socio-demographic factors and parental characteristics on adolescent use of alcohol/drug treatment services; and 4) develop and test a model of adolescent use of alcohol and drug treatment services. It is hoped that the model developed in this project will be confirmed and expanded with future longitudinal data and will lead to more studies in this important area, as well as providing useful information for clinicians and policy makers, to improve service delivery for adolescents who have alcohol and drug related problems.