Evaluating the drug-abusing probationer - Clinical interview versus self-administered assessment

Practitioners working in drug treatment programs within the criminal justice system often must choose between the clinical benefits of the counselor-client interview and the time savings of self-administered instruments. The Brief Background Assessment (BBA), an intake instrument, was administered to clients in a probation-based drug treatment program as both a structured interview and as a self-administered assessment. Agreement between the two administrations was high across all areas assessed by the BBA. Likewise, nonagreeing responses were distributed randomly, across administration type. The results suggest that information collected by a self-administered intake assessment such as the BBA provides information similar to that gathered by interview-based intake assessments.