An overview of controlled studies of adolescent substance abuse treatment

Although several treatments for adolescents with substance use disorders ar e available, there are few well-controlled studies in the extant literature that compare these treatments for efficacy. This paper provides an overvie w of controlled treatment studies for adolescents with substance use disord ers. It focuses specifically on five main treatment modalities: family-base d and multi-systemic interventions, behavioral therapy, cognitive behaviora l therapy, pharmacotherapy, and twelve step approaches. Examples of adolesc ent-specific standardized assessment instruments are also provided, the inc lusion of which may improve future treatment comparison studies. While the results look especially promising for cognitive behavioral therapy and fami ly-based/multi-systemic therapies for adolescents with SUDs, most of the re levant studies fail to utilize validated outcome measures, making it diffic ult to conclude that one treatment approach is more effective than another.