This project's objective is the development of a substance abuse treatment planning assessment instrument, companion instruction manual, and related professional education materials. This assessment tool will focus on matching substance abuse treatment clients with the most appropriate total abstinence oriented, peer recovery support group for their treatment and aftercare. Support groups are a key component in most treatment protocols and a cost effective way to reduce related health care costs; however, many clients may experience problems with spiritually based groups, such as Alcoholics Anonymous and Narcotics Anonymous, which are predominant in the treatment industry. Meanwhile, alternative support groups, such as SOS and SMART Recovery, remain underutilized recovery resources. This new assessment instrument will enable treatment professionals to identify those clients for which a given support group may be contraindicated and help match them with a more appropriate alternative. This will then place treatment clients in the best possible position for achieving tong4erm recovery from their substance abuse problems. To achieve this end, an in-depth survey of members of the major substance abuse support groups will be used to gather pertinent data for the construction of the new treatment assessment instrument and related educational materials.
Thesaurus Terms: alcoholism /alcohol abuse therapy, data collection methodology /evaluation, drug abuse education, drug abuse therapy, educational resource design /development, social facilitation, social support network, substance abuse mental health personnel behavioral /social science research tag, clinical research, human subject, patient oriented research, questionnaire
