FOLLOW-UP CONTACT BIAS IN ADOLESCENT SUBSTANCE-ABUSE TREATMENT OUTCOME RESEARCH

This study examined the problem of follow-up contact bias in adolescen t substance abuse treatment outcome research. The sample consisted of 299 male and female adolescents at an AA-oriented hospital-based inpat ient substance abuse treatment program. Six-month and 12-month follow- up data were collected from adolescents and their parents with a seque nce of standard and supplementary follow-up data collection procedures . Standard efforts were implemented first and subjects contacted were assigned to the easy-to-contact group. Those subjects not contacted wi th the initial standard efforts were included in the supplementary eff ort. Subjects contacted with supplementary efforts constituted the dif ficult-to-contact group. The difficult-to-contact group exhibited cons istently poorer outcomes compared to the easy-to-contact group across most outcome variables and for both follow-up periods. Outcome results from extant studies with a significant number of noncontacted subject s may represent overestimates of outcome and may not be generalizable to the noncontacted group.