Mindfulness Mobile App to Reduce Adolescent Substance Use

Substance-abusing youth - especially those who are involved in the juvenile justice system - are at higher risk than nonusers for mental health problems, including depression, conduct problems, personality disorders, suicidal thoughts, attempted suicide, and completed suicide. The proposed Phase II project aims to develop and test the efficacy of a mobile app, called Qlarity, that is geared toward helping high risk adolescent substance users reduce or quit their substance use. The Qlarity app is based on the primary substance use cessation components tested in our previous work with juvenile justice-involved adolescents and on intervention components shown to be central to smoking cessation; it applies a mindfulness approach as the guiding framework for the intervention.