Drug Abuse Treatment Outcome Study: Adolescent US (DATOS-A-1993-1995)

Parent Series Details:

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Study Details:
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] 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.

Study Scope

Time period: 
1993/1995
Collection date: 
1993/1995
Geographic coverage : 
United States
Unit of observation: 
individual
Data types: 
clinical data
Universe: 
Clients admitted to selected drug treatment programs in the United States in 1993-1995.
Notes: 
Users 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 http://www.datos.org/.

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.
Subject Terms: 
  • adolescents
  • AIDS
  • alcohol abuse
  • drug abuse
  • drug treatment
  • drug use
  • education
  • employment
  • health
  • HIV
  • mental health
  • sexual behavior
  • substance abuse treatment
  • tobacco use
  • treatment outcome
  • treatment programs

Study Methodology

Mode of data collection: 
face-to-face interview
Sample: 
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]). 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.
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.
Versions: 
  • 2008-10-07: The question text was updated to enhance the clarity of each question by adding question stems and qualifying information. Also, minor typographical errors were corrected.
  • 2007-02-19: SAS transport (XPORT), SPSS portable, and Stata system files were added to Parts 1-5. Some corrections were made to the codebooks.
  • 2005-11-04: On 2005-03-14 new files were added to one or more datasets. These files included additional setup files as well as one or more of the following: SAS program, SAS transport, SPSS portable, and Stata system files. The metadata record was revised 2005-11-04 to reflect these additions.
  • 2004-06-23: Three datasets were added to the study: 6-Month Intreatment Data (Part 7), Measures Data (Part 8, and 12-Month Follow-Up Urine Result Data (Part 9). Corresponding documentation was prepared for each. Value labels were added for one variable (MUSA) in Part 5, 12-Month Follow-Up Data.
Extent of processing: 
  • Performed consistency checks.
  • Created variable labels and/or value labels.
  • Standardized missing values.
  • Created online analysis version with question text.
  • Checked for undocumented or out-of-range codes.

Study Bibliography

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