View clinical trials related to Substance Use.
Filter by:Methamphetamine (MA) is a psychostimulant drug with high abuse potential. MA can be smoked, snorted, injected or ingested orally to produce a release of high levels of dopamine into the brain and reduction of dopamine uptake. Its use results in feelings of pleasure, increased energy, and greater alertness lasting up to 12 hours. In 2010, the National Survey on Drug Use and Health reported that 353,000 Americans aged 12 or older reported being current MA users. Over the past decade MA use rates have fluctuated with current use rates on the decline; however, importantly, even though overall use rates are declining, use rates among males and females are approaching equal proportions. This use rate pattern is unlike other drugs of abuse, which typically demonstrate males using more than females. In some states, more females than males consider MA as their drug of choice. Namely, in a 2010 report in the state of Utah, more females were diagnosed with MA as a primary substance of abuse than males upon admission to treatment. Depression and MA use are highly comorbid. The relationship between MA use and depression is likely bidirectional, with MA use causing changes in mood and being used as a self-medicating behavior to reduce symptoms of depression. Several studies have shown that depression rates are higher in MA-using females compared to their male counterparts. It is likely that neurobiological and psychosocial mechanisms contribute to increased incidence of depressive symptoms in females. No clear treatment model exists to suggest how the comorbidity of depression and MA use is best managed. In studies of antidepressants for treatment of MA withdrawal and dependence, findings have suggested that antidepressants are ineffective for treating depressive symptoms. Creatine is an organic acid occurring naturally in vertebrates, where it takes part in energy homeostasis in tissues with fluctuating energy demands. Exogenous creatine has been shown to increase brain concentrations of PCr. Neuroimaging studies of creatine have shown increased brain phosphocreatine (PCr) content with creatine administration. Therefore, we hypothesize that oral creatine administration will increase PCr levels and reduce depressive symptoms in a sample of depressed female MA users. This hypothesis will be tested by a within subjects design by giving depressed MA using females oral creatine for eight weeks and measuring PCr pre- and post-treatment with magnetic resonance spectroscopy. Moreover, depressive symptoms will be measured by administration of the Hamilton Depression Rating Scale twice weekly during the course of creatine treatment.
This study is designed to gain knowledge about effective interventions for reducing HIV risk in a high risk population. A new Risk Reduction Therapy for Adolescents (RRTA) will be compared to usual services received by youth in juvenile drug courts. It is expected that youth treated with RRTA will show greater reductions in substance use and risky sexual behaviors. Reducing HIV risk by effectively targeting substance use and risky sexual behaviors in high-risk groups such as juvenile drug court-involved youth could favorably impact society at multiple levels (individual, family, peer, community, fiscal).
The goal of this project is to empirically refine and improve a comprehensive family-centered prevention strategy for reducing and preventing adolescent substance use and other problem behaviors. This project builds on 15 years of programmatic research underlying the development of the Family Check-up model (FCU), originally referred to as the Adolescent Transitions Program (ATP; Dishion & Kavanagh, 2003), but later expanded as a general approach to mental health treatment for children from ages 2 through 17 (Dishion & Stormshak, 2007). The FCU model is a multilevel, family-centered strategy delivered within the context of a public school setting that comprehensively links universal, selected, and indicated family interventions. Previous research and the investigators' practical experience working in school settings indicate that the intervention strategy needs improvement in 3 critical areas to build on previous significant effects and to enhance the potential for future dissemination and large-scale implementation:(a) improve the feasibility of both the universal level and the indicated level of the intervention by broadening the intervention components and systematically embedding these components into the current behavioral support systems in the schools; (b) address the transition from middle school to high school, with special attention to academic engagement and reduction of deviant peer clustering; and (c) explicitly incorporate principals of successful interventions with families and young adolescents of diverse ethnic groups into both the universal and indicated models. An additional general goal of this study is to develop, test, and refine a set of research-based instruments that facilitate evaluation, training, implementation, and monitoring of intervention fidelity to maximize the potential success of implementation and large-scale dissemination. Participants include 593 youth and their families recruited from the 6th grade in three public middle schools in Portland, OR. Families were randomly assigned to receive either the FCU intervention model or treatment as usual. Assessments were collected for 5 years through the 10th grade. High school transition planning and intensive intervention efforts occurred in Grades 7-9. The investigators tested the hypothesis that the FCU intervention will reduce the growth of problem behavior and substance use through the enhancement of family management and parent involvement in school.
The Goal of this project is to integrate a previously-tested internet-facilitated Screening, Brief Intervention, and Referral to Treatment (iSBIRT) system for adolescent substance use into a large network of primary care offices, the Pediatric Practices of Children's Hospital Boston (PPOC).
The project is a 15-year follow-up of 240 young adults whose families participated in an experimental evaluation of the New Beginnings Program (NBP), a preventive intervention for divorced families. The NBP was provided in late childhood; the follow-up occurred in young adulthood. Families were randomly assigned to one of three conditions: mother program (MP), dual-component mother and child program (MPCP), or literature-control (LC) condition. Programs were designed to change several putative mediators of children's post-divorce mental health problems using empirically-supported change strategies. The investigators expected that the NBP would have either main or risk by program interactive effects on mental health and substance use problems and disorders, developmental tasks, parent-young adult relationships, physical health problems, and competencies, such that YAs who participated in NBP will have better functioning than YAs in the control condition. The investigators expected that the NBP will have either main or risk by program interactive effects on mothers' mental health; those in the NBP are expected to have fewer mental health problems than those in the control condition.
The purpose of this Stage II clinical trial is to test the efficacy of a culturally sensitive, cognitive-behavioral intervention to reduce sexual risk behavior among minority adolescents for prevention of sexually transmitted infection (STI/HIV), unintended pregnancy and abuse by changing high-risk sexual behaviors, decreasing substance use and encouraging contraceptive use. Its primary goal is to expand risk-reduction interventions created in previous studies to further increase intervention efficacy for this particularly vulnerable, high-risk group. An adolescent intervention has been created and pilot tested in developmental studies. Results indicated reductions in substance use, risk behaviors, unintended pregnancy, STI and abuse without reports of adverse outcomes. Specific aims of the current study include: 1) To obtain a more in-depth understanding of configurations of psychosocial and situational factors associated with high-risk sexual behavior, substance use, STI/HIV and contraceptive use among abused minority adolescent women with STI; 2) To implement a controlled randomized trial of a cognitive behavioral risk-reduction intervention consisting of 2 small group sessions, 2 individual counseling and 3 support groups for this group; 3) To evaluate the effects of the adolescent intervention model versus enhanced counseling for this group on AIDS Risk Reduction Model (ARRM)-related constructs, high-risk sexual behavior, substance use, abuse recurrence, contraceptive use, unintended pregnancy and STI/HIV at 6 and 12 months follow-up. Participants will include a convenience sample of 600 Mexican-and African American adolescent women, aged 14-18 years with a history of sexual or physical abuse and current STI.
An existing face-to-face HIV prevention intervention (The Young Men's Health Project, YMHP; R01DA20366) will be iteratively adapted and pilot-tested to target difficult to engage high-risk young men who have sex with men (YMSM) via online social networking and aims to reduce both high-risk sexual behavior and drug use.
The objective of the current study is to test a novel, behavioral approach to treat depressive symptoms and improve HIV medication adherence and subsequent physical health outcomes among African American HIV-infected substance users residing in inner-city Washington, DC. This treatment will serve as a compliment to standard residential and follow-up outpatient substance use treatment, with the goal of reducing depressive symptoms and improving HIV medication adherence, physical health, and substance use outcomes.
The goal of this research is to assess the impact of the "screening, brief intervention, and referral to treatment" (SBIRT) intervention strategy for harmful substance use among HIV-positive people.
The main goal of the proposed study is to evaluate the efficacy of Familias Unidas (United Families), a family-based, ecodevelopmental intervention found to be previously efficacious in preventing and reducing behavior problems, illicit drug use, and unsafe sexual behavior in non-delinquent Hispanic adolescents (Pantin et al., 2003; Prado, Pantin, Briones et al., 2007). The study hypotheses are as follows: Hypothesis 1. Familias Unidas will be more efficacious than Treatment as Usual in preventing drug use among Hispanic first offending adolescents or those who are at risk for committing a first time offense over time. Hypothesis 1a. The effect of Familias Unidas on drug use will be partially mediated by improvements in family functioning. Hypothesis 2. Familias Unidas will be more efficacious than Treatment as Usual in preventing unsafe sexual behavior among Hispanic first offending adolescents or those who are at risk for committing a first time offense over time. Hypothesis 2a. The effect of Familias Unidas on unsafe sexual behavior will be partially mediated by improvements in family functioning. Hypothesis 3. Familias Unidas will be more efficacious than Treatment as Usual in preventing subsequent criminal offenses among Hispanic first offending adolescents or in preventing a first time offense for those at risk for committing a first time offense over time. Hypothesis 3a. The effect of Familias Unidas on subsequent criminal offenses will be mediated by family functioning.