Moderators of Substance Use Disorder Treatment for Adolescents.

Bachrach RL, Chung T. Moderators of Substance Use Disorder Treatment for Adolescents. Journal of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology : The Official Journal For The Society of Clinical Child and Adolescent Psychology, American Psychological Association, Division 53. 2021 Jul 1; 50(4):498-509.

Dimensions for VA is a web-based tool available to VA staff that enables detailed searches of published research and research projects.

If you have VA-Intranet access, click here for more information vaww.hsrd.research.va.gov/dimensions/

VA staff not currently on the VA network can access Dimensions by registering for an account using their VA email address.    Search Dimensions for VA for this citation
* Don't have VA-internal network access or a VA email address? Try searching the free-to-the-public version of Dimensions

Search for Abstract from PubMed

---

Abstract:

: This brief review covers the current state of the literature on moderators of adolescent substance use disorder (SUD) treatment. These moderators provide information on "for whom" a specific treatment may work best.: We used Google Scholar, PubMed, PsycInfo, and manual search of relevant reference lists to identify eligible peer-reviewed publications from January 2005 to December 2019.: We summarize 21 published studies (including meta-analyses, randomized clinical trials, and correlational work) testing moderators and/or predictors of adolescent SUD treatment outcomes. Conclusions are, thus, limited by the relatively small number of studies. Results suggest that, for adolescents with co-occurring externalizing pathology or those higher in SUD severity, more intensive treatment appears to be more effective. Other findings were often inconsistent (e.g., examining sex or race/ethnicity as a moderator) between studies, making it challenging to provide clear recommendations for personalizing SUD treatment choice.: Future research may need to shift focus from exploring often unchangeable moderators (e.g., race/ethnicity) to factors that are potentially modifiable with treatment. Additionally, testing models that include mediators of treatment effects-that is, factors that help to explain "how" treatment works-along with moderators (moderated-mediation) may provide the most benefit in understanding both "for whom" and "how" to tailor SUD treatment to optimally meet an adolescent's personal needs.