Mentored Clinical Career Award in Adolescent Substance Abuse
Condition: Substance-Related Disorders
MeSH terms: Substance-Related Disorders
Study type: Interventional

Summary: 
      The goal of this project is to determine the barriers to, and risks and benefits of random
      laboratory drug testing for adolescents with identified drug or alcohol problems.
    

Detailed description: 
      Use of drugs and alcohol is associated with a variety of health care problems, making
      settings where adolescents receive routine medical care ideal for implementation of routine
      screening and early intervention. However, little research has been conducted on the efficacy
      of interventions for adolescent primary care patients who are using drugs or alcohol. Urine
      drug testing can be used for a variety of indications, including school or work based
      population surveillance, verification of history, or monitoring of individuals who are in
      treatment for a drug-use disorder. This study will focus exclusively on the therapeutic use
      of urine drug testing. Drug testing can be a useful therapeutic adjuvant for patients with
      drug-use disorders in a variety of settings.

      This study will investigate the use of random laboratory drug testing as a therapeutic
      intervention for teens with drug problem use, abuse or dependence. We have 5 objectives:

        1. To develop a standardized protocol for random urine drug testing, produce a manual and
           training protocol, and refine the protocol in preparation for a future efficacy trial.

        2. To estimate the cost of a random drug-testing program.

        3. To determine the factors that are associated with willingness to be tested, and barriers
           to enrolling adolescents in laboratory drug testing programs.

        4. To perform an initial, small-scale experimental trial of the random drug testing
           protocol. The purpose of this trial is to estimate the effect size of the intervention
           and will be used in calculating the sample size for a future stage 1b trial.

        5. To determine the potential risks to adolescents who participate in a random drug testing
           program, including possible breach of confidentiality, greater conflict between the
           parent and child, more difficulty with communication between clinician and patient,
           increased use of drugs not detected by routine urine screens (i.e. inhalants), and
           increased use of strategies and products known to defeat drug tests.
    

Intervention name(s): Randomized Drug Testing Trial
Intervention type(s): Other
Intervention description(s): Adolescents in the experimental condition will receive all of the services offered by the Adolescent Substance Abuse Program (including individual meetings, parent and adolescent group meetings, psychopharmacology as indicated)and will be enrolled in a random drug testing program (with an average of 12 requests for testing over a 12 week period).
Allocation: Randomized
Intervention model: Parallel Assignment
Masking: None (Open Label)
Primary purpose: Other
Keywords: Alcohol abuse; Drug abuse