Impact of Brief Intervention Services on Drug-Using Truant Youths' Self-Reported Delinquency and Arrest Charges: A Longitudinal Study.

Impact of Brief Intervention Services on Drug-Using Truant Youths' Self-Reported Delinquency and Arrest Charges: A Longitudinal Study. J Child Adolesc Subst Abuse. 2016;25(5):458-479 Authors: Dembo R, Schmeidler J, Wareham J, Briones-Robinson R, Winters KC, Ungaro R Abstract The issue of delinquency among truant youth is insufficiently documented in the literature. There is a need to elucidate this issue, and assess the efficacy of interventions to reduce this problem behavior. The present, NIDA-funded study addressed this gap by examining the impact of a Brief Intervention (BI), originally designed to address youth substance use, on their delinquent behavior over an 18-month follow-up period (for self-reported delinquency) and a 24-month follow-up period (for official record delinquency). A number of significant BI intervention effects with sizable effect sizes were found, as well as a number of marginally significant BI effects. In particular, significant reductions in arrest charges at 24-month follow-up for youth receiving BI services compared to controls were among the key findings of this study. Service delivery implications and directions for future analyses are discussed. PMID: 27616873 [PubMed - as supplied by publisher]
Source: Journal of Child and Adolescent Substance Abuse - Category: Addiction Tags: J Child Adolesc Subst Abuse Source Type: research