The Development of a Campus-Based Substance Abuse Prevention Program

The development of a campus-based Substance Abuse Prevention Program (SAPP) is discussed. The program has been designed in accordance with recommendations made by prominent authorities in this field, keeping in mind the needs of the campus at which the program is located. Suggestions for developing such programs are provided.     

A New Multidimensional Measure of Spirituality‐Religiosity for Use in Diverse Substance Abuse Treatment Populations

Extant measures of spirituality‐religiosity, not developed specifically with substance abuse treatment populations in mind, may not be culturally appropriate in regard to either: (1) the 12‐step “culture” found in many treatment programs; or (2) racial‐ethnic minority populations overrepresented in publicly funded programs. A 40‐item four‐dimensional measure was developed, which differentiates “religiosity” (religious practices) from “spirituality” (an individual's relationships with God/higher power, others, and self). Instrument development involved: qualitative focus groups with individuals in seven diverse Texas treatment programs; quantitative exploratory and confirmatory (CFA) analyses to test the four‐factor model conducted using data from 237 diverse clients in treatment programs in Tennessee and Virginia. Confirmatory analyses indicate acceptable fit indices (>0.90) for the four‐factor model, and acceptable reliability estimates for all subdimensions (≥0.70) provide further support for the measures. Results support the potential usefulness of the measures.     

Substance Abuse Prevention:

Components of a successful substance abuse prevention program are discussed. Substance use and abuse trends in school-aged populations are briefly reviewed. Prevention program strategies deemed desirable through recent research efforts are incorporated in describing a model program. Educational approaches and substance abuse intervention strategies are differentiated. Program planning guideliens are presented and discussed. These guidelines are designed to establish and maintain school and community support for prevention programs.     

Student Assistance Programs: New Approaches for Reducing Adolescent Substance Abuse

In this article the authors describe school-based Student Assistance Programs (SAPs), which are designed to reduce adolescents' substance abuse. SAPs, modeled after Employee Assistance Programs (EAPs) in the workplace, are identifying, assessing, referring, and managing the cases of substance-abusing students. Adoption of the SAP model is accelerating in response to the growing need to address substance-impaired youth with resources from both the school and the community.     

Factors Impacting the Development of Substance Abuse Counseling Supervisors

In this study, the authors sought to examine factors that contribute to the overall development of supervisors in the substance abuse field. Significant predictors for supervisor development were found as were differences in these predictors that were based on supervisor recovery status.     

Conceptual and Moral Development of Substance Abuse Counselors: Implications for Training

The relationship among substance abuse counselors' education, experience, recovery status, and cognitive development (conceptual complexity and moral reasoning levels) was examined in a simultaneous multiple regression. Significant relationships were found between counselors' level of conceptual complexity and moral reasoning and their education. Implications for counselor training are presented.     

Sexual Consent in Heterosexual Relationships: Development of a New Measure

The extensive research on date rape attitudes and experiences has left sexual consent itself largely unexamined. The objective of this study was to develop a measure to assess women’s and men’s attitudes and behaviors regarding sexual consent. Using both focus groups (N = 18) and a mail survey (N = 514) of undergraduate students at a Canadian university, two scales of sexual consent were developed: (1) a Sexual Consent Attitudes Scale, and (2) a Sexual Consent Behaviors Scale. Preliminary psychometric evidence suggested good reliability and validity. As hypothesized, women, more than men, preferred a more cautious approach to sexual consent by stressing the need to obtain consent more explicitly. Multiple regression analyses supported a reciprocal relationship between sexual consent attitudes and sexual consent behaviors.     

The Development of a Substance Abuse Treatment Program for Forensic Patients With Cognitive Impairment

The Substance Abuse and Mental Illness (SAMI) program combines cognitive rehabilitation and dual‐diagnosis substance abuse treatment within a stages of change context. This article describes the development, implementation, and preliminary outcome analysis of the SAMI program in a forensic hospital.     

Substance Abuse in Persons With Disabilities: Treatment Considerations

In this article the authors examine the issues and needs of individuals who are physically disabled and have substance abuse problems. Reasons for the high rate of substance abuse among individuals who are physically disabled are explored. Treatment considerations for such individuals are addressed and include individual, family, and educational counseling. Prevention issues are examined, and the importance of the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA, 1990) is assessed.     

Risk for Substance Abuse: Memory as a Common Etiological Pathway

Memory processes may be part of the causal chain by which known antecedents of alcohol and drug abuse influence drinking. Recent findings on alcohol expectancies are consistent with a memory model and help articulate how consumption may be influenced by memory representations of biological and environmental characteristics. This line of research suggests novel prevention and intervention strategies.     

Compliance Disengagement in Research: Development and Validation of a New Measure

In the world of research, compliance with research regulations is not the same as ethics, but it is closely related. One could say that compliance is how most societies with advanced research programs operationalize many ethical obligations. This paper reports on the development of the How I Think about Research (HIT-Res) questionnaire, which is an adaptation of the How I Think (HIT) questionnaire that examines the use of cognitive distortions to justify antisocial behaviors. Such an adaptation was justified based on a review of the literature on mechanisms of moral disengagement and self-serving biases, which are used by individuals with normal personalities in a variety of contexts, including research. The HIT-Res adapts all items to refer to matters of research compliance and integrity rather than antisocial behaviors. The HIT-Res was administered as part of a battery of tests to 300 researchers and trainees funded by the US National Institutes of Health. The HIT-Res demonstrated excellent reliability (Cronbach’s alpha = .92). Construct validity was established by the correlation of the HIT-Res with measures of moral disengagement (r = .75), cynicism (r = .51), and professional decision-making in research (r = ?.36). The HIT-Res will enrich the set of assessment tools available to instructors in the responsible conduct of research and to researchers who seek to understand the factors that influence research integrity.     

Personality Variables and Self-Medication in Substance Abuse

Khantzian (1985) has proposed a model of substance abase that asserts that some drug-dependent individuals select a drag of choice to provide relief from specific painful affective states. This study was undertaken to examine the self-medication hypothesis in four groups of substance abusers defined by their use of specific drugs. The Personality Assessment Inventory (Morey, 1991), an inventory characterized by scales of homogeneous clinical content, was used to examine group differences in symptomatology and personality traits. Results suggest that there are traits or symptoms that separate various groups of drug-dependent patients, but not in concordance with the self-medication hypothesis.     

Development of a Substance Abuse Consultation and Referral Service in an Academic Medical Center: Challenges, Achievements and Dissemination

Approximately 25% of US hospital beds are occupied by individuals with active substance use disorders (SUD). Acute medical hospitalization provides an opportunity to address SUDs and provide patient-centered intervention and referral for treatment. Nationally, some hospitals have developed substance abuse consultation departments to improve the care of hospitalized substance users. In this paper we describe the Addiction Psychiatry Service (APS) in a large urban hospital which provides bed-side SUD consultation, screening, intervention and referral to treatment. APS utilizes the multiple disciplines of psychology, social work and medicine to integrate substance abuse services throughout the hospital and educate future generations of medical and psychology trainees. We conclude with how the APS service is informing the development of similar programs in other academic departments within our hospital and best practice recommendations to further disseminate this service model.     

Family Dynamics and Substance Abuse: A Preliminary Study

The authors discuss family patterns of interaction that are thought to contribute to the maintenance of substance abuse. Preliminary research findings pertaining to the interaction patterns are also presented. The data suggest that these families are often highly interdependent, that in about 50% of the cases they ideally desire some sort of triangulation between parents and offspring, and that in about 50% of the cases they have or are working toward a hierarchical reversal. Therefore, in addition to evaluating characteristics of the substance abuser, the authors recommend that counselors consider the nature of relationships within the client's family of origin.     

A Sociocognitive Analysis of Substance Abuse: An Agentic Perspective

This article presents a social-cognitive theory of substance abuse. The exercise of self-regulatory agency plays a central role in this approach. Perceived self-efficacy is the foundation of human agency. Unless people believe they can produce desired effects by their actions, they have little incentive to act. Self-efficacy beliefs promote desired changes through cognitive, motivational, affective, and choice processes. Perceived self-efficacy exerts its effects on every phase of personal change—the initiation of efforts to overcome substance abuse, achievement of desired changes, recovery from relapses, and long-term maintenance of a drug-free life. Assessments of perceived efficacy identify areas of vulnerability and provide guides for treatment. Substance abuse is a social problem, not just a personal one. Reducing substance abuse also requires policy initiatives and social remedies achieved through the exercise of collective efficacy.     

Assessing the Development of Relationships: A New Measure

This paper describes the development and application of a procedure (The Relationship World Index) to measure the development of intimate relationships. Grounded in symbolic interaction theory, the Relationship World Index is a measure of agreement on important aspects of relationships between members of intimate dyads. The development of the measure was guided by assumptions inherent in symbolic interactionism that predict the emergence of a shared construction of reality that bonds relationship members. Research results are presented providing evidence for the reliability and validity of the measure.