Drug Abuse Treatment Services

Research Findings from September, 2005 Director's Report

This section lists selected summaries from NIDA funded research projects that investigate the child and adolescent drug abuse treatment. The summaries provided were selected from recent issues of the Director's Report to the National Advisory Council on Drug Abuse. For a more comprehensive listing of NIDA funded projects see the Director's Report.

Predicting Incentives to Change among Adolescents with Substance Abuse Disorder

This study assessed the degree and nature of motivation and treatment readiness among adolescents admitted to substance abuse services, and whether such factors vary across subgroups of youth based on their social, legal, or clinical profiles. Data come from interviews with 249 youth, 12-18 years of age, who have been admitted to inpatient, residential, or outpatient substance abuse treatment. Measures are adapted from an instrument developed to assess multiple domains of motivation to change (e.g., intrinsic and extrinsic motivation, treatment readiness). Results suggest that the incentive to change among adolescents with substance-abusing behavior is modest at best, regardless of dimension. Nonetheless, ethnicity, type of substance use, and psychopathology significantly predict incentives to change, though the predictors depend on which dimension is considered. The most robust predictor of incentives is the severity of negative consequences associated with youth's substance use-the greater the severity, the greater the incentives. Breda, C., and Heflinger, C.A. Predicting Incentives to Change Among Adolescents with Substance Abuse Disorder. American Journal of Drug and Alcohol Abuse, 30(2), pp. 251-267, 2004.