EVALUATING THE DRUG-ABUSING PROBATIONER - CLINICAL INTERVIEW VERSUS SELF-ADMINISTERED ASSESSMENT

Practitioners working in drug treatment programs within the criminal j ustice system often must choose between the clinical benefits of the c ounselor-client interview and the time savings of self-administered in struments. The Brief Background Assessment (BBA), an intake instrument , was administered to clients in a probation-based drug treatment prog ram as both a structured interview and as a self-administered assessme nt. Agreement between the two administrations was high across all area s assessed by the BBA. Likewise, nonagreeing responses were distribute d randomly, across administration type. The results suggest that infor mation collected by a self-administered intake assessment such as the BBA provides information similar to that gathered by interview-based i ntake assessments.