Differences in characteristics of adolescent drug abuse clients that predict to improvement: For inpatient treatment versus outpatient treatment

The characteristics that predicted to treatment outcome were determined separately for 157 adolescent drug abusers who received inpatient treatment and for 296 adolescent drug abusers who received outpatient treatment. The outcome criterion used was the degree of reduction in substance use/abuse. Of 33 predictor variables analyzed, twelve were found to predict to inpatient outcome, and fifteen were found to predict to outpatient outcome. Only two variables, school, and not considering substance use to be harmful to one's health were found to predict to worse outcome for both treatment settings. A number of the characteristics found prognostic for adolescents are different from those reported earlier for adult substance abusers. For example, greater substance use/abuse at follow-up had been reported to be predicted by greater severity of alcohol and drug use at admission, for both inpatient and outpatient adults; but for the adolescents in this study, this was found only for the outpatient.