The Case for Placement Criteria for Adolescent Substance Use Disorders

Adolescent substance use (MTF, 2012) and substance use disorders (SUD) continue to be major public health concerns. However, SUD has unfortunately received only little resources compared to other high prevalence mental disorders in youth. Lifetime diagnoses of alcohol and drug abuse among adolescents in different states in the US range from 3?10% Seven percent of youth ages 12?17 years were classified as needing treatment for substance use disorders (SAMHSA, 2011). Due to lack of motivation, limited resources, insufficient age-appropriate quality programs, and lack of a broad consensus on preferred treatment strategies, only 10?15% of adolescents in need of treatment end up receiving service (Kaminer, 2013). In fact, youth account for a substantially disproportionate amount of the unmet national treatment need. For those who do receive any treatment, there are no good estimates of the suitability or adequacy of the type, intensity, quality or duration of those services (Fishman, 2007). Since the early 1990s there has been increased activity in the development of adolescent-specific treatment approaches (Dennis and Kaminer, 2006) as well as confirmation of short-term psychosocial treatment effectiveness of a variety of modalities with similar effectiveness [3,16]. Studies of therapy process, mediators, moderators and proximal outcomes in the treatment of addictive disorders have been developing as the new frontier in our efforts to understand mechanisms of behavior change [1,7,13]. In addition, the increasing consensus on the importance of diagnosing and treating comorbid psychiatric disorders has led to progress in research examining dual diagnosis in youth