Answering a Call to Action: Reducing Fetal Alcohol Spectrum Disorders Using a Healthcare Champion Model.

Prenatal alcohol exposure and fetal alcohol spectrum disorders (FASDs) remain critical public health issues. Alcohol use in pregnancy is a leading preventable cause of birth defects, developmental disabilities, and learning disabilities. Alcohol screening and brief intervention (SBI) is effective at reducing excessive alcohol use.

Virtual training and technical assistance: a shift in behavioral health workforce access and perceptions of services during emergency restrictions.

Background: To respond to the COVID-19 pandemic, the Substance Abuse and Mental Health Services Administration-funded Technology Transfer Centers had to rapidly adapt to ensure that the behavioral health workforce had continuous access to remote training and technical assistance (TTA). Although the Technology Transfer Centers have historically relied partially upon virtual methods for delivering TTA, the shift to a strictly virtual approach necessitated by COVID-19 restrictions has raised new questions for how to best proceed with services when social distancing guidelines are relaxed. The objective of this exploratory paper was to compare TTA provision in the six-month period prior to (9/1/19 thru 2/28/20) and during (4/1/20 thru 9/30/20) early COVID-19 restrictions to determine the extent to which the shift to virtual service provision impacted the behavioral health and medical workforce.

Use of Telehealth in Substance Use Disorder Services During and After COVID-19: Online Survey Study.

Background: Social distancing guidelines for COVID-19 have caused a rapid transition to telephone and video technologies for delivering treatment for substance use disorders (SUDs).

Objective: This study examined the adoption of these technologies across the SUD service continuum, acceptance of these technologies among service providers, and intent of providers to use these technologies after the pandemic. Additional analysis using the validated technology acceptance model (TAM) was performed to test the potential applications of these technologies after the pandemic.

"It's Gonna be a Lifeline": Findings From Focus Group Research to Investigate What People Who Use Opioids Want From Peer-Based Postoverdose Interventions in the Emergency Department.

Study Objective: Postoverdose interventions that deploy peer recovery support specialists to emergency departments (EDs) are a promising response to opioid overdoses among patients presenting in EDs. The objective of this study was to elicit patients' perspectives regarding the feasibility and acceptability of such an intervention and to ensure that their perspectives are represented in intervention design, implementation, and evaluation.

Method: In 2019 the study investigators conducted focus groups with people who use opioids to elicit perspectives about a postoverdose intervention delivered in the ED by using a semistructured interview guide that asked about feasibility, acceptability, perceived benefits, and concerns.

"Another tool for the tool box? I'll take it!": Feasibility and acceptability of mobile recovery outreach teams (MROT) for opioid overdose patients in the emergency room.

Drug poisoning deaths involving opioids have increased exponentially in the United States. Post-overdose outreach to patients in the emergency room (ER) is a promising strategy for increasing uptake of medication assisted treatment and reducing subsequent overdose. We conducted a mixed methods study to investigate the feasibility and acceptability of a mobile recovery outreach team (MROT) program for opioid overdose patients presenting in Nevada's ERs, which was funded by the SAMHSA Opioid State Targeted Response (STR) grant.

Attitudes about addiction: a national study of addiction educators.

The following study, funded by the National Institute of Drug Abuse (NIDA), utilized the Addiction Belief Inventory (ABI; Luke, Ribisl, Walton, & Davidson, 2002) to examine addiction attitudes in a national sample of U.S. college/university faculty teaching addiction-specific courses (n=215).

Burnout among the addiction counseling workforce: the differential roles of mindfulness and values-based processes and work-site factors.

Although work-site factors have been shown to be a consistent predictor of burnout, the importance of mindfulness and values-based processes among addiction counselors has been little examined. In this study, we explored how strongly experiential avoidance, cognitive fusion, and values commitment related to burnout after controlling for well-established work-site factors (job control, coworker support, supervisor support, salary, workload, and tenure). We conducted a cross-sectional survey among 699 addiction counselors working for urban substance abuse treatment providers in six states of the United States.

A randomized control trial examining the effect of acceptance and commitment training on clinician willingness to use evidence-based pharmacotherapy.

This study evaluated the effectiveness of acceptance and commitment training (ACT) for increasing drug and alcohol counselors' willingness to use evidence-based agonist and antagonist pharmacotherapy. Fifty-nine drug and alcohol counselors were randomly assigned to either a 1-day ACT workshop or a 1-day educational control workshop. Both groups then attended a 2-day workshop on empirically supported treatments for substance abuse.

Augmenting continuing education with psychologically focused group consultation: Effects on adoption of group drug counseling.

This study examines whether adding psychologically focused group consultation to a standard 1-day continuing-education workshop on Group Drug Counseling (GDC), a group therapy with evidence of effectiveness in the treatment of substance abuse problems, improves GDC adoption. Counselors who had taken a 1-day workshop were randomly assigned to an 8-week course of group consultation that met for 1.5 hr per session (n = 16) or to no additional contact (n = 14).

An examination of the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity code.

This study examines the reliability of the Motivational Interviewing Treatment Integrity (MITI) code, a brief scale designed to evaluate the integrity of the use of motivational interviewing (MI). Interactions between substance abuse counselors with one person role-playing a client were audiotaped and scored by trained teams of graduate and undergraduate students. Segments of 10 minutes and 20 minutes were compared and found to yield the same reliability and integrity results.

An investigation of stigma in individuals receiving treatment for substance abuse.

This study examined the impact of stigma on patients in substance abuse treatment. Patients (N=197) from fifteen residential and outpatient substance abuse treatment facilities completed a survey focused on their experiences with stigma as well as other measures of drug use and functioning. Participants reported experiencing fairly high levels of enacted, perceived, and self-stigma.