Brief Intervention Impact on Truant Youths' Marijuana Use: Eighteen-Month Follow-Up

ABSTRACT

School truancy among teenagers remains a serious national problem, as evidenced by its significant association with school performance, psychological, and behavioral problems. Truancy is also positively associated with substance abuse. This study presents 18-month outcome data from a National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA)-funded controlled trial that examined the efficacy of a brief intervention (BI) to reduce marijuana use among truant youths. Adolescents and their parents were randomly assigned to receive either a two-session youth-only session (BI-Y), two-session youth and additional parent session (BI-YP), or standard truancy services (STS). Analyses of an auto-regressive lag model examined marijuana use at three months, six months, 12 m onths, and 18 m onths post-intervention. Results indicated adolescents receiving BI services, especially BI-Y services, showed significant reductions in marijuana use, at 18-month follow-up. BI-YP youths showed a greater increase in marijuana use than BI-Y youths. Reasons for this unexpected finding are discussed. Implications of the results for future research and service delivery also are discussed.

KEYWORDS:

• marijuana use
• risk behaviors
• truancy
• youth drug use brief intervention

Funding

This work was supported by the research reported in this article was funded by National Institute on Drug Abuse (NIDA) Grant No. DA021561. We are grateful for NIDA's support. We are also grateful for the collaboration and support of our work by the Tampa Police Department, the Hillsborough County Sheriff's Office, the Hillsborough County Public Schools, the Agency for Community Treatment Services, and 13th Judicial Circuit, Juvenile Diversion Program. We also appreciate Ms. Kimberly Barrett's assistance on this project between 2009 and 2011.