DOI: 10.3886/icpsr03404
title: Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Study--Adolescent (DATOS-A), 1993-1995: [United States]
title: Archival Version

description: Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Study - Adolescent (DATOS-A) was a
multisite, prospective, community-based,
longitudinal study of adolescents entering treatment. It was designed
to evaluate the effectiveness of adolescent drug treatment by
investigating the characteristics of the adolescent population, the
structure and process of drug abuse treatment in adolescent programs,
and the relationship of these factors with outcomes. Three major types
or modalities of programs included in the study were chemical
dependency or short-term inpatient (STI), therapeutic community or
residential (RES), and outpatient drug-free (ODF). The adolescent
battery of instruments included intake, intreatment, and follow-up
questionnaires based largely on the DATOS adult study DRUG ABUSE
TREATMENT OUTCOME STUDY (DATOS), 1991-1994: [UNITED STATES] (ICPSR
2258) instrument format, with considerable tailoring to the adolescent
population. Clients entering treatment completed two comprehensive
intake interviews (Intake 1 and Intake 2), approximately one week
apart. This information is provided in Parts 1 and 2 of the data
collection. These interviews were designed to obtain baseline data on
drug use and other behaviors, such as illegal involvement, as well as
information on background and demographic characteristics, education
and training, mental health status, employment, income and
expenditures, drug and alcohol dependence, health, religiosity and
self-concept, and motivation and readiness for treatment. The one-,
three-, and six-month intreatment interviews (Parts 3, 4, and 7)
included items on treatment access, intreatment experience, and
psychological functioning, as well as questions replicated from some
of the domains in the Intake 1 and 2 questionnaires. The 12-month
post-treatment follow-up interview (Part 5) included questions
replicated from the previous interviews, and also included
post-treatment status. Part 6 includes variables for time in treatment
and interview availability indicators. The Measures Data (Part 8) were
generated by using the Diagnostic and Statistical Manual of Mental
Disorders (Rev. 3rd ed., DSM-III-R) (American Psychiatric Association,
1987). The variables in Part 8 give either the DSM-III-R level of
dependence to a drug category or they describe whether the subject
meets the DSM-III-R standard for a particular disorder. The 12-Month
Follow-up Urine Result data (Part 9) provide the results from urine
sample tests that were given to a sample of subjects at the time of
the 12-Month Follow-up Interview. The urine test was used to ascertain
the nature and extent of bias in the self-reports of the
respondents. Urine specimens were tested for eight categories of drugs
(amphetamines, barbiturates, benzodiazepines, cannabinoids, cocaine
metabolite, methaqualone, opiates, and phencyclidine). The drugs
covered in the study were alcohol, tobacco, marijuana (hashish, THC),
cocaine (including crack), heroin, narcotics or opiates such as
morphine, codeine, Demerol, Dilaudid, and Talwin, illegal methadone,
sedatives and tranquilizers such as barbiturates and depressants,
amphetamines or other stimulants such as speed or diet pills,
methamphetamines, LSD, PCP, and other hallucinogens or psychedelics,
and inhalants such as glue, gasoline, paint thinner, and aerosol
sprays. The study also included drug of choice, frequency, and route
of administration.
description: Response Rates: 2,974 of the clients who completed the intake
interview were selected as eligible for the 12-month follow-up
interview (reasons for ineligibility include incarceration,
hospitalization, language barrier, and living outside of the
metropolitan interviewing area). Of these eligible clients, 65.9
percent (n = 1,960) were located, 60 percent (n = 1,785) were
successfully interviewed, .5 percent (n = 14) were deceased, and 5.4
percent (n = 161) refused to participate.
description: Six cities located in different sections of the United
States were selected for the study because they each had a sufficient
number of adolescent programs to support the research design. All six
cities were medium to large metropolitan areas with established
treatment systems. These cities were a subset of the sites for the
DATOS adult study DRUG ABUSE TREATMENT OUTCOME STUDY (DATOS),
1991-1994: [UNITED STATES] (ICPSR 2258). Treatment programs were
purposefully sampled and included (1) programs that treated an
adolescent population separately from an adult population and (2)
programs with projected patient admissions of at least five patients
per month. Thirty-seven programs participated in the study.
Respondents were sampled from among those admitted to treatment in
1993-1995. A total of 3,382 clients participated in the Intake
interview. Of those, 2,258 participated in the one-month intreatment
interview, 1,120 participated in the three-month intreatment
interview, and 1,785 participated in the 12-month follow-up. The
intake treatment sample was 74 percent male, 24 percent African
American, and 21 percent Hispanic, with a mean age of between 15 and
16 years and a mean of 9 years education. Over half had some juvenile
or criminal justice status at admission, two-thirds had no prior drug
treatment experience, and the predominant drug-use patterns included
weekly or daily use of marijuana alone or combined with alcohol. For
the urine testing that was done at the 12 month follow-up, 25 percent
of the respondents interviewed at follow-up were randomly selected to
provide a urine sample for testing. A total of 464 respondents were
asked to provide a specimen. Urine specimens suitable for testing were
obtained for 417, and results were available for 362 respondents and
analyzed at a NIDA-certified laboratory.
description: Datasets: 
DS0: Study-Level Files
DS1: Intake 1 Data
DS2: Intake 2 Data
DS3: 1-Month Intreatment Data
DS4: 3-Month Intreatment Data
DS5: 12-Month Follow-Up Data
DS6: Time in Treatment and Interview Availability Indicators
DS7: 6-Month Intreatment Data
DS8: Measures Data
DS9: 12-Month Follow-Up Urine Result Data
DS10: Merged Data Files for Online Analysis
description: Clients admitted to selected drug treatment programs in
the United States in 1993-1995.
description: face-to-face interviewUsers are advised that the data are most
appropriately analyzed by modality.The Intake 1 and Intake 2 data
files contain several continuous variables that denote age at the time
of a certain event. For some of these variables, dichotomous codes 1
and 95 were also used for "don't know but under 15" and "don't know
but 15 or older," respectively. Code 1 was also used for actual
responses of "1 year old." Because it is unlikely that these events
occurred at age 1, the code 1 was changed to 94 ("1 or don't know but
under 15") in order to make it clearer that this code denotes
something other than age 1. Users are cautioned that this may have an
effect on any analyses performed using these variables.Users are
advised that some DATOS-A publications exclude data from two sites
that had low response rates. However, the public use files include
data from all six sites.DATOS-A is an ongoing collaborative
research effort of the National Development and Research Institutes at
North Carolina (NDRI), Texas Christian University, the University of
California at Los Angeles, and NIDA. For additional information, see
the DATOS Web site.Conducted by the Coordinating DATOS Research Center at the National Development and Research Institutes (NDRI), North Carolina, and collaborating research centers at Texas Christian University and the University of California at Los Angeles, with data collected by the Research Triangle Institute.