A Comparison of Adolescent Group Therapy and Transitional Family Therapy for Adolescent Alcohol and Drug Abusers

Overview

The purpose of this study is to compare the effectiveness of two psychosocially-based, manual-driven, behavioral modalities. One of these is a standardized version of the established modality of Adolescent Group Therapy (AGT), which includes both psychoeducational and therapeutic components. The other is a state-of-the-art family therapy approach, Transitional Family Therapy (TFT), which integrates management of the current problem with exploration of multigenerational issues. Both approaches have been developed to expressly target adolescent alcohol problems.

Despite well-founded societal concerns over the use of illicit drugs by youth, alcohol use has persisted for decades as the number one adolescent substance abuse problem in the U.S. Further, research has shown that the earlier the onset of alcohol use, the more likely is a person to develop alcohol dependence later, during adulthood. Consequently, the need is clear for interventions which will arrest this process at the earliest point possible. Hence, interventions that mobilize a youth's social systems to help that young person deal with the problem, i.e., the family and peer systems, would make sense from a number of standpoints. Two primary modalities developed to deal with such issues are those examined here: family therapy and group therapy. The participants were males and females, ages 13-17 at intake, with a DSM-IV diagnosis of either alcohol abuse or alcohol dependence. Following random assignment to condition, basic treatment in both conditions was based on a 12-session model and took approximately 3-4 months, followed by 1-2 aftercare sessions over an additional 1-2 months. The treatment was provided by therapists who were already working within the community (as opposed, for instance, to graduate students). Follow-up assessments were obtained at 3 months post-treatment, 1 year post-treatment, and 2 years post-treatment, thus allowing determination of the extent to which treatment effects "held up" to a degree not attained by most of the previous outcome studies within this domain. Comparisons: AGT and TFT are being compared on the extent to which their participants used alcohol, as well as other substances, during the three post-treatment periods. Other comparisons include school performance (grade point average), family relations/functioning, and involvement with the legal system.