Trajectories of adolescent alcohol use after brief treatment in an Emergency Department.

Objective: The primary aim of this study was to identify distinct classes of trajectories of adolescent substance use following a brief motivational interviewing (MI) intervention in an Emergency Department (ED). The secondary aim was to identify predictors of class membership.

Methods: Latent growth mixture modeling was used with 177 adolescents who participated in two randomized clinical trials evaluating MI for an alcohol-related event.

Alcohol use history differentiates adolescents treated in the emergency department after an alcohol-related incident.

Objectives: The current study compared 3 groups of adolescents identified in an emergency department (ED) following an alcohol-related event: (1) alcohol-positive adolescents scoring at or above the clinical cutoff on a measure of problematic drinking, the Adolescent Drinking Inventory (ADI) (n = 45); (2) alcohol-positive adolescents scoring below the clinical cutoff on the ADI (n = 68), and (3) alcohol-negative adolescents (n = 64). We examined whether these 3 groups of adolescents differed on measures of substance use as well as psychosocial factors.

Methods: Participants were recruited as part of a larger clinical trial.

Ethnic group differences in substance use, depression, peer relationships, and parenting among adolescents receiving brief alcohol counseling.

This study examined differences in substance use and related risk factors in a matched sample of Hispanic and White non-Hispanic adolescents receiving brief alcohol counseling. Findings revealed that the White non-Hispanic adolescents reported smoking a higher number of cigarettes per day. The Hispanic adolescents reported perceiving less acceptance from the neighborhood environment in which they live, whereas their parents reported monitoring their teens less than the parents' of White non-Hispanic adolescents.

Intolerance for Smoking Abstinence Questionnaire: psychometric properties and relationship to tobacco dependence and abstinence.

Unlabelled: While smokers' ability to tolerate emotional or physical distress has been associated with length of smoking cessation, there is no measure of ability to tolerate smoking abstinence discomfort specifically, which may be more heuristic than a measure of tolerance of general emotional stress or physical discomfort.

Methods: Questionnaires completed by 300 smokers assessed inability to tolerate smoking abstinence discomfort (IDQ-S), general physical discomfort (IDQ-P), and general emotional discomfort (IDQ-E), so that shared variance among these measures could be assessed.

Results: The IDQ-S has three reliable components: withdrawal Intolerance, Lack of Cognitive Coping, and Pain Intolerance.

The significance of marijuana use among alcohol-using adolescent emergency department patients.

Objectives: The objective was to determine if adolescents presenting to a pediatric emergency department (PED) for an alcohol-related event requiring medical care differ in terms of substance use, behavioral and mental health problems, peer relationships, and parental monitoring based on their history of marijuana use.

Methods: This was a cross-sectional comparison of adolescents 13-17 years old, with evidence of recent alcohol use, presenting to a PED with a self-reported history of marijuana use. Assessment tools included the Adolescent Drinking Inventory, Adolescent Drinking Questionnaire, Young Adult Drinking and Driving Questionnaire, Center for Epidemiologic Studies Depression Scale, Behavioral Assessment System for Children, and Peer Substance Use and Tolerance of Substance Use Scale.

Parental factors influence teen alcohol use after an emergency department visit.

Objectives: To determine if parental factors are significant predictors of short-term adolescent drinking after an alcohol-related emergency department (ED) visit.

Methods: Adolescents, 13 to 17 years, who either had evidence or reported usage of alcohol in the 6 hours before an ED visit, were eligible for this study. Alcohol use was assessed at baseline and at 3-month follow-up.

The Important People Drug and Alcohol interview: psychometric properties, predictive validity, and implications for treatment.

Research with the Important People instrument has shown that social support for abstinence is related to alcohol treatment outcomes, but less work has been done on the role of network support in drug treatment outcomes. A drug and alcohol version of the Important People instrument (IPDA) was developed and administered to 141 patients in residential treatment for cocaine dependence. Three components were found, all with acceptable internal consistency: (a) substance involvement of the network, (b) general/treatment support, and (c) support for abstinence.

Cocaine craving as a predictor of treatment attrition and outcomes after residential treatment for cocaine dependence.

Objective: Whether craving (urge to use) actually predicts drug-use outcomes has had little investigation despite its central role in theories. Pretreatment predictors of within-treatment cocaine urges were investigated, and the urge reports were used as predictors of treatment attrition and outcome while controlling for correlated variables. In addition, urge to use in the patients' first relapse situations was compared with urge reports in the same patients' close-call situations without relapse.

Utility of the AUDIT for screening adolescents for problematic alcohol use in the emergency department.

The emergency department is a setting conducive to screening adolescents for problematic alcohol use, who can then be targeted for further evaluation and intervention. This study examined the utility of the Alcohol Use Disorders Identification Test (AUDIT) as a screening measure for identifying young adolescents in an urban emergency department (ED). Adolescents (13-17 years old) who presented to the ED were screened as part of a larger study.

Validation of the timeline follow-back in the assessment of adolescent smoking.

The timeline follow-back instrument (TLFB) is a valid and reliable method of quantifying alcohol use patterns. The use of this instrument has been expanded to assess other behaviors, such as drug use, sexual behavior, binge eating, and panic attacks. Some evidence for the validity and reliability of this assessment instrument has emerged in the area of adult smoking.

Potential biases in case detection of alcohol involvement among adolescents in an emergency department.

Objective: To determine the factors associated with physician decisions to test for alcohol involvement in adolescents treated in an emergency department (ED) and to examine patient and event characteristics associated with being identified as alcohol positive, either by testing or by clinical examination.

Methods: Medical chart reviews were conducted for all adolescent patients (n = 9,660; age range, 13-19 y) treated over a 1-year period in a Level I regional trauma center/ED.

Results: Among all 9,660 patients in the ED, 298 (3.

Physician recruitment for a community-based smoking cessation intervention.

Objective: Our goal was to describe a strategy to recruit a population-based sample of physicians into a trial to test an approach to disseminate physician-delivered smoking cessation interventions.

Study Design: The 3-phase population-based recruitment trial included: (1) a print-based promotional appeal, (2) in-person presentations with by the principal investigator (PI), and (3) follow-up calls by the PI and paid physician recruiters. Participation requirements were kept minimal to facilitate recruitment.