Outpatient Adolescent Treatment for Comorbid Substance Use and Internalizing Disorders

Adolescent substance abuse results in significant negative outcomes and extraordinary costs for youths, their families, communities, and society. Moreover, rates of psychiatric comorbidity among substance abusing youth range from 25% up to 82%, and youths with a dual diagnosis have worse outcomes and are more than twice as costly to treat than their counterparts with no comorbidity. This project was a pilot test of a new treatment, OPTION-A, which was adapted from Multisystemic Therapist (MST) and other evidence-based interventions to specifically treat youth presenting for outpatient treatment of comorbid substance use and internalizing disorders. The project was a randomized controlled pilot trial comparing the experimental treatment to usual services in the community.